With a startled cry of fear, Red Hand turned and dashed away at mad speed down the gloomy gorge.
With the speed of a deer he sped along, his teeth shut close, his hands fiercely clenching his rifle, and his whole being wrought up to a pitch of terrible excitement by what he had seen.
So wrought up was he that through the long hours of the night he pressed on, until the morning sun found him far from the scene where, as if in punishment for his deed of blood, had appeared before him a very phantom of the mountains.
CHAPTER XXIV.
AN UNEXPECTED SIGHT.
Five years afterward the murderer of Ben Talbot returned to that grave. The inscription yet remained, though worn by time. Though five years had passed they had left no trace of their footsteps upon the face of the murderer, excepting to make the features harder and sterner.
He was dressed pretty nearly as upon his former visit to the gorge, his black felt hat still looped up with the red coral hand, though his knife and revolver were of a newer pattern, and his rifle was one of Evans’ improved repeaters, capable of firing thirty-five times without reloading.
When, five years before, Red Hand fled from the Black Hills, he believed he would never again profane its unknown fastnesses with his footsteps. But as time passed and the eyes of adventurers and hunters were turned toward the country now called the “Miner’s New Eldorado,” a small band of hardy men determined to penetrate into its unexplored depths, and seek there the golden fortunes said to be buried beneath the rocky hills.
The guide of that party was Buffalo Bill, the famous scout. As the party neared the almost unknown depths of the Black Hills, he had decided to employ another as a guide, for army duty was soon to call him in another direction.