CHAPTER VI.
THE LAST APPEAL.
The coach out of Pocket City carried as passengers Carrol Dean and Bonnie Belle, on their way East to the home of the miner.
Bonnie Belle did not say to her friends in Yellow Dust Valley that she would not return, for she feared that the result might be disastrous to her interests there. She told them she was going East on an important mission, and her interests in Pocket City were left to the management of the one who held the position of clerk in the Frying Pan Hotel.
Deadshot Dean had written to his wife to expect him home soon, and that he would bring with him one whom she would also be glad to welcome.
The stage-trail from Pocket City led within forty miles of Pioneer Post, and into the one from the fort at a point where there was a station with a corral of horses for the coaches and couriers.
It was while the coach was nearing this station that the driver heard the clatter of hoofs behind him, and, turning his head, saw a horseman coming along at rapid speed after the coach.
His first thought was that he was a road-agent in chase, and his next that the man might be a courier bearing despatches from the fort. But the horseman soon overtook the coach, and called out:
“Ho, driver, have you Bonnie Belle a passenger with you?”
“I has,” was the reply of Sandy Gill, the driver, and he eyed the horseman curiously.
“Then I have a letter for her.”