Half an hour after the coach had rolled away, a horseman came dashing upon the scene and drew rein.
The horseman was Buffalo Bill, the king of scouts, and he cried sternly:
“This is Silk Lasso Sam’s work!”
CHAPTER IV.
BONNIE BELLE OF POCKET CITY.
Of all strange camps and communities ever seen upon the frontier that of Pocket City, in Yellow Dust Valley, was the strangest. It was named from the fact that it fitted into the valley among the mountains like a pocket in a dress, and also on account, perhaps, of there having been found just there a number of rich pockets of gold.
Yellow Dust Valley was a home of miners, a couple or more thousands being scattered along the sides of the mountains, and Pocket City, situated near the upper end, was the headquarters of all.
There the stage-line had its ending, and there was a semi-monthly coach from Pocket City to the main stem of the Overland Trail. There was a post-office, a hotel known as the Frying Pan, a saloon and gambling-resort called the Devil’s Den, several stores, a combination blacksmith and wagon-shop, with smaller drinking and betting-places, and several boarding-houses.
The camps were the resort of a very wild element of humanity, varying from honest men to horse-thieves, road-agents, gold-grabbers, and desperadoes of the very worst type.
The most prominent person in Pocket City was a woman, or, rather, a young girl, because she could scarcely be over nineteen. She had arrived in Pocket City one day in a coach which had been held up, and had defended herself so well that she had shot one of the robbers dead, and enabled the driver to get away.
The “big man” of Pocket was in that coach, returning from the East. He had received a mortal wound, and was so tenderly cared for by the young girl that, upon arriving at his home, he had told her frankly that he would make her his heiress, as he had no one to claim his riches.