“Pat, I am going to play a bold game for gold, for I shall go to the fort, and you are to help me out.”
“Go to the fort, sir?” asked the amazed man.
“Yes, I shall go as a passenger in Ribbons’ coach, one who fired upon the road-agents and was wounded, and afterward was robbed. Quick! get me the clothes off that man and help me to disguise myself—yes, here is a dressing-case belonging to him, and I will soon have off my beard and mustache.
“Then I will place the body of the passenger in the coach, in another of his suits of clothes, for he traveled well supplied, and Frank can be left where he fell, for they will send back to the scene of the hold-up when I reach the fort.”
“Ah! captain, you have clean lost your senses.”
“Not a bit of it, Pat, for I see a chance to visit the fort without the slightest danger, and there is one there whom I wish particularly to see, for it means big money for me.”
As he spoke the daring man was making his toilet, having quickly shaved off his mustache and imperial.
“Now, Pat, stand there and empty a couple of revolvers into the coach,” he said, “and then you get Frank’s horse, take that dead man’s luggage, and go to the retreat, but say nothing of where I am, or when to expect me back; only do you keep in Spy’s Cañon, to be ready to meet me, or a messenger I may send there. Now I am ready, and do you get off at once, for a body of cavalry might happen along this way.”
Mounting the box, where the dead Ribbons still lay, after a few more words of instructions to his man, the outlaw chief drove on up the hill, holding the reins like one who was a skilled driver.
His outlaw companion followed a moment after, with the luggage of the dead passenger, leaving his dead comrade and the horses lying in the trail.