Front matter (continued 2)

Hurriedly Great Bear had passed the word for silence and, sitting on their ponies like statues, they had advanced at a walk.

Not even the roar of the carbines had induced the chieftain to increase the pace.

But when he saw the forms of the cavalrymen mounting the farther edge of the ravine, he became interested.

"Jess Jame fool um paleface!" he grunted, his eyes twinkling with delight. "Sojers no get Jess. Injun got chance."

If the bandits had, indeed, taken to the plains across the gorge, Great Bear knew that he and his braves were as likely to find them as the troopers. But because he was wise in his generation, the wily old warrior again enjoined his braves to silence that they might surprise the little band had they doubled on their tracks as he more than half suspected.

The shoeless hoofs of their ponies making scarcely no sound because of the thunderous charge of the cavalry on the farther plains, the redskins bore down on the ravine.

But, as the reader knows, Jesse had seen them and, with his pals, was scurrying from their path.

The Indians slowed up as they reached the edge of the ravine, then descended, crossed, mounted the other side, and swept on in the trail of the soldiers.

Pausing as he heard the bucks plunge into the gorge, Jesse parted the bushes at his side, peering at the dark, tossing forms.

Cautiously his pals followed his example.

Never had men seemed to move so slowly as did the Indians in crossing the gulch.

But at last only a few stragglers had not mounted to the plains.

"Quick, boys! Crawl to the top of the bank, only keep under cover!" whispered the world-famous desperado.

With alacrity his companions obeyed.

A rod he led them, still on their hands and knees, after they had gained the level.

"There's no danger of our being seen now, I reckon," he declared, rising to his feet. "But we won't run any risk by showing too much of ourselves.

"Come on! While the Injuns and troopers are searching the other side of the ravine, we'll get back to the cliffs on this."

Overjoyed at their escape from the foes, which seemed little short of miraculous, the bandits broke into a swift, steady jog trot that carried them rapidly over the ground.

Nearer and nearer they approached the rocks that towered majestically ahead of them.

But just as safety seemed within their grasp, Frank gasped:

"I'm all in! The—wo—wound—in—my—leg."

And he sank to the ground, in collapse.

Muttering an oath under his breath at this misfortune when all was going so well, Jesse hurried to the side of his brother and the others joined him.

"Take an arm, Texas," snapped the bandit-chieftain, as he put his own hand under Frank's left shoulder and lifted him to his feet.

Quickly the other obeyed and, supporting their exhausted comrade between them, they resumed their progress toward the cliffs.

"I reckon we might as well go back into the canyon," asserted the world-famous desperado.

"We'll climb up to the table land where we rescued Tony and rest for a few days. We can see all about us. No one can surprise us and the bucks and troopers would never think we'd go back.

"We'll be able to find something we can eat."

This suggestion met with the approval of the others and the little band bent their steps toward the black cleft that marked the entrance into the rocky defile.

Occasional glances behind them told them that none of the pursuers had returned from the chase.

Indeed, no moving object could they discover in any direction and, with hearts beating light at their successful escape from the blood-thirsty, revenge-craving savages and the cavalrymen whose ire had been roused by their strategic errors, they were just about to enter the canyon when a lithe figure darted toward them from behind a boulder.

"It's more of the red devils," snarled Wild Bill, whipping out his guns. "We are smart—I don't think. While we've been patting ourselves on the back, they've been lying here, waiting for us."

Yet the alarm of the outlaws was short-lived.

Ere any of them could draw their weapons, a voice cooed, softly:

"Don' shoot! Don' shoot! Me Dew Drop!"

The relief the words brought to the bandits, who feared the fruits of their desperate escape and retreat were to be snatched from them, was inexpressible and it was turned to outright joy as the Indian maiden continued:

"Dew Drop take um Jess Jame to safe cave. Heap food. Heap water in pool. Then Dew Drop leave. Injun move camp, Dew Drop got go."

"Then if they're going to take you along, they haven't got wise to your hiding us in Kaw-Kaw's cave, I judge," exclaimed the bandit-chieftain, glad to know the assistance which had been so opportune to his little band had brought no trouble to the girl.

"Squaws no know. Bucks forget 'fore get back. Um go on raid. Sojers no be in forts now," returned Dew Drop.

"Sorry I didn't pot more of 'em if that's what they're up to," grunted the world-famous desperado.

But his good fairy did not understand what he meant and prattled artlessly.

Skirting the base of the precipice, Dew Drop passed the mouth of the canyon and led them more than a mile beyond, stopping when she reached a fissure that ran from top to base.

Squeezing into it, the bandits were plunged in darkness.

Putting his hand on his guide's shoulder, Jesse bade his men hold onto the one in front of him and in single file they advanced till they could feel from the change in the air that they had reached the cave.

"Dew Drop no stay," declared the maid, slipping from the bandit-chieftain's hand. "Mus' join um squaw. Paleface fin' grub, water. So long."

And, ere any of the outlaws had the time to protest, the Indian maiden sped from them, leaving them in the unknown cave in pitch darkness.

Chapter VIII.

IN THE FATAL CIRCLE.

But Jesse had plans other than to permit the soft-voiced Indian maiden to desert them thus suddenly.

Without a word, with the quickness of a panther he sprang after her leaving the others helpless and surprised at the unexpected action of their chief.

"Has Jess gone plumb bug house?" breathed Tony, scarcely daring to trust his voice.

"Everybody's got wheels in this devil's neighborhood," averred Texas.

"And if he ain't he will have in the hole we're in now," added Homely Harry.

Frank groaned weakly.

"Hey, pard," interrupted Tony, suddenly bethinking himself of their wounded companion, "How you comin' along?"

"Give me a drink," returned the elder James brother in a voice scarcely above a whisper. "I feel as if I was dying."

"Bosh," retorted Tony. "I know them symptoms. You're been loosin' some red juice. Here, take a pull at the flask. It'll put you right in a jiffy."

Frank James gulped down the liquor greedily, so much so that for the instant it nearly strangled him.

"How's that," grinned Tony in the darkness, fetching the flask away and restoring it to his ample hip pocket.

"B—b—better," coughed Frank. "But I'll be bad again in a minute. Where's Jess?"

"Dunno. He vamoosed like a lightning bug. Sloped after the Indian maiden I guess."

"Call him back quick," demanded Frank. "You, Texas. Hurry or I'll bleed to death. I'm bad hurt, I tell you fellows."

Without an instant's hesitation Texas sprang away to do the wounded man's bidding, regardless of any personal danger to himself.

But Texas did not have far to go.

Just without the cave he was grasped in a grip of iron. His hand flew to his belt.

"Stop, you fool! Where are you going!" hissed Jesse in his ear.

"Gad, what a fright you gave me," gasped Texas. "I was going for you. Frank's bad and said you'd got to come right away. Oh there's the girl, eh."

"Bad? Come along Dew Drop," and without further parley Jesse led the way into the cave, keeping tight hold on the Indian girl, who though reluctant, made no protest at being dragged back by the man she had just saved.

"Somebody strike a light," demanded the great bandit.

"No, no," protested Dew Drop with a quick pressure on the outlaw's arm. "Injun smell smoke. Stop um hole up an catch pale face. Jess Jame and other pale faces come with Dew Drop."

"All right go ahead and we'll follow," decided Jesse. "Frank can you walk?"

Frank groaned.

"Pick him up, two of you and follow. Be careful."

Not a word was spoken as the strange procession moved silently on, deeper and deeper into the bowels of the mountain.

The silence was, after what had seemed an age to the men whose nerves were tensed by the strangeness of the cave, broken by the voice of the Indian girl.

"Pale faces git down um bellies," she directed tersely. "Me go first."

Suiting the action to the word Dew Drop threw herself down and crawled through a hole in the rock. But Jesse, who followed, did not succeed in passing the narrow opening with the same ease that Dew Drop had, but he finally accomplished the feat with sundry exclamations of disgust beneath his breath.

Texas, more ample of girth, got stuck in the hole, which he had attempted to get through feet first, and he could not move either way. Jesse solved the difficulty quickly by grabbing the unfortunate outlaw by the feet and jerking him in beside him.

But with Frank the task was still more difficult.

"Easy there," commanded the bandit-chieftain. "Put him through head first and I will draw him in."

This they did, and though Frank groaned and begged piteously the move was quickly executed.

Dew Drop now led the way again, which Jesse observed led slowly upward and that the air was freshening as they proceeded.

At last the Indian maiden came to a quick stop.

"Light um fire," she directed tersely.

It was the work of a moment for Jesse to strike a match and to his intense satisfaction he discovered a pile of dry limbs in one corner of the chamber where they had halted, and a blazing fire was burning quickly.

The men uttered an exclamation of surprise.

What they saw challenged the admiration of every man present.

Millions of brilliant stalactites hung suspended from the domed arch above them, and gave back scintillating flashes from the light of the flames. For the moment they forgot the real purpose of their presence there.

"Diamonds, by Judas," exclaimed Homely Harry in open mouthed wonder.

"Diamonds, your eye," returned Texas. "Them ain't no diamonds. I know the kind, I've seen them before."

But Jesse had given no heed to their expressions of admiration.

Instantly the fire was started, he dropped down by the side of his wounded brother, making a hurried examination of his wounds.

"Give me a piece of lariat," he commanded.

Tony passed over a strip of tough leather. With this the outlaw-chieftain bound the leg just above the wound, administering a drink from his own flask, and turned to Dew Drop.

"Got any saw bones around here?" he demanded sharply. "That's what I brought you back for."

The Indian girl looked at him blankly.

"Pale face medicine man," he explained.

Dew Drop smiled understandingly, but shook her head.

"Two suns journey," she explained, pointing to the north.

"Got a medicine man in your village, then? We've got to have some one here quick and I guess a medicine man of one color is about as good as another."

"Great Bear him got medicine man," explained the girl. "No get medicine man. Great Bear kill white man; Great Bear kill me."

"We'll kill Great Bear; so, that'll be a toss up. You go get the medicine man. Tell him your Indian beau is down in the canyon so badly wounded that he will die and fetch him here."

"Dew Drop fraid," she protested.

"Don't worry, we'll fix him so he won't hurt you. I will follow along behind you to see that no harm comes to you. Two of you men go outside the cave after a while and hide there and when Dew Drop brings the man you jump on him, and carry him in—"

"No, no," answered the maiden hurriedly, "me put out um medicine man eyes."

"Put out his eyes?" demanded Jesse in surprise.

"So," drawing her hand across her eyes and to the back of her head.

"Oh, I see: you mean to blindfold him? But how are you going to do it?"

"Me tell um take um cave of Great Spirit and must not see."

The others gazed at the girl blankly. Jesse haw-hawed loudly.

"Well, you are a wise little savage. I guess Jesse James and his band had better hang around here a while and take some lessons from you. What do you say, boys? Dew Drop ain't near so soft as her name, is she now?"

"She ain't that," they chorused.

"Oh hurry up," urged Frank.

With that, Jesse and the girl quickly made their way out of the cave. Once outside he gave the girl explicit directions, and without further delay she sped away, quickly disappearing amid the foliage without so much as betraying her movements by the snapping of a dry twig.

"A snake couldn't get away any quieter than that," nodded Jesse approvingly, and after a keen survey of rock and wood he too slipped away in the direction that Dew Drop had taken.

Not quite sure of his way, Jesse cautiously mounted a rock and, shading his eyes from the setting sun, peered off to the north.

He found what he was looking for, and, dropping from his perch once more took up his cautious way toward the Indian village. That he was going toward what would prove certain death, should any watchful, sneaking redskin chance to discover him or even come upon his trail, did not trouble the great bandit in the least.

His brother's life was at stake and that there might be no slip up he would follow clear to the Indian village, if necessary.

"I'll bring back the medicine man dead or alive," he swore under his breath.

Twilight was deepening and Jesse went more boldly on. But he had made a fatal move. He had done a thing that he would not have done had his band of hardy outlaws been with him, for then Jesse's sense of responsibility would have been doubly heavy.

He might expose his own life to peril unnecessarily. But for his companions, no. He took no more chances than was necessary where they were concerned.

During the brief moment that he had stood poised on the rock, however, the field glass of a United States Cavalry officer chanced to be trained on that very spot. More than that the pair of eyes behind the glass, also chanced to belong to the very officer with whom the band had mixed it up earlier.

The Captain uttered an exclamation of surprise.

"Quick! mount!" he commanded. "Not a word as you value your lives."

Trained to instant obedience, the troopers sprang into their saddles. They did not know what the order portended, nor did they care. The Captains manner meant that there was excitement ahead and that a brush with the red skins was more than likely at no distant moment.

"Red skins?" asked the young Lieutenant, in a low voice, riding up beside his superior officer.

"Worse," was his laconic reply. "James, and he was alone when I saw him. I think he is out reconnoitering. We'll bag him this time I hope."

"That ought to be easy if he is alone," returned the Lieutenant.

"Humph," snorted the Captain. "You'll learn more as you grow older. I'd rather hunt savages than those Missouri outlaws, for when it comes to devilish tricks, the Missourians can give the Indians points blindfolded.

"Halt! Dismount!

"Tether your ponies."

"Where away?" asked the Lieutenant softly.

"To the north. He should be near us providing he has not changed his course and I don't think he has, for very good reasons too."

"Why, Captain."

"Because, young man, on one side is an Indian village full of savages thirsting for his blood, and on the other a sheer precipice dropping down a few hundred feet only. We are on the third side, and, unless he turns back there is only one course open for him—to run into us.

"Throw your men out into a circle. Conceal them behind boulders. We should get him in the circle that way, and once there I don't think he will get away.

"Catch him alive if you can. Kill him if you have to."

Silence again fell over the night.

The troopers trained to tread on velvet feet, slipped along like so many silent shadows.

But every first right finger trembled on a trigger.

They knew the man they had to deal with, and the mere click of a gunlock on their part might mean instant death at the hand of the great bandit.

They lay down.

Each tree and rock beyond seemed to hold a lurking shadow, so tensely strained were their nerves and vivid their imaginations.

A twig snapped among the trees in the dense shadows. But not a man stirred. For long minutes they waited there, scarcely drawing a free breath.

The men needed no orders from their captain, no imposition for silent caution. They were trained too finely in Indian warfare to need such injunctions.

If indeed it were the great outlaw himself who stood under the spreading trees whence had come the warning sound, they knew he would not move for some time. Not until he had waited the effect of his incautious step would he move a muscle of his body, and perhaps he would be standing with one foot poised in the air, every sense keenly alert, his eyes piercing the shadows with almost superhuman vision.

To such extremes are men's senses trained, who live in momentary expectation of the blinding crash and the bullet between the eyes.

The troopers heard no further sound.

Their eyes suddenly began to blink. They could scarcely credit what they saw.

Right in the middle of the moonlit space, as if he had risen from the ground, stood the great outlaw himself.

How he had come there without their observing him, was beyond their understanding.

He was standing behind a large boulder, hat tipped back, his features plainly outlined in the brilliant moonlight, nose and face tipped upward as if scenting danger in the air.

Twenty trigger fingers twitched nervously, and as many Winchesters swung silently until they focused on the figure no more than twenty paces distant.

The great desperado poised there like a statue, hands and arms hanging listlessly at his sides, guns in their holsters as if there was no expectation of their being needed for instant use.

But this did not deceive Uncle Sam's Indian fighters. They were too familiar with Jesse James' reputation for quickness on the trigger not to understand that the mere glint of a moonbeam along a rifle barrel would mean death to the soldier behind it almost before he could pull his own trigger.

Like a blow in the face came the sudden command:

"Put up your hands, Jesse James!"

"Crash!"

Both the desperadoe's "Colts" spoke in a single explosion, and the Captain yelled with pain as a bullet tore through one arm.

"Give it to him!" he roared.

"Fire in a volley."

The roar of the heavy Winchesters sent the leaves of the trees a rustling and even the rocks and earth catching up the note, responded with a tremor.

Dimly they could see the figure of the outlaw stretched out on the ground in the shadow of the boulder after the smoke had drifted away.

Chapter IX.

WHEN THE EARTH FELL APART.

Just before leaving the cave the great desperado had whispered a word of command to Tony and Texas.

But the nature of the orders so secretly conveyed the others did not know, and none save Frank felt licensed to make inquiry, for Jesse was apt to administer a sharp rebuke that the inquisitive one would not soon forget.

Being the interested party the elder James brother glared suspiciously at the two bandits.

"See here, you mutts," he exploded with all his remaining strength, "I know what you are up to. You think my leg has got to come off and Jess didn't want me to know about it cause I'd make a ruction.

"Take it from me, you've got another guess coming. The leg is mine and it's on to stay. Time enough to plant it when I'm put away. Nice looking chump I'd be hopping around on one peg, eh?" he laughed maliciously.

"You're wrong, Frank," corrected Texas. "You ain't so bad off either. I'll gamble my spurs on it, that it's only a flesh wound and there ain't no bullet in there at all. But them gunshot wounds is nasty things, and what the chief wants is for that redskin sawbones to put on a lotion that will draw out the poison and—"

"Then what did he want to be so danged secret like with you duffers for? That's what gets me. You tell me right now or I'll give you a dose of the same medicine I got!" he growled menacingly.

Tony laughed good-naturedly.

"Jest a little job Jess had put up to save the girl's skin. What do you s'pose would have happened to her if she brought the medicine man here. Sure as you're alive, she'd a been in a bad way if the redskins got wise to what she's doin' with the medicine man. Do you get it?"

Frank nodded and emitted a sigh of relief.

"I just wanted to give you all a tip that I've got a gun or two in my belt, and what's more, they are liable to go off if any of you dubs monkey with this peg of mine. See?"

But Tony and Texas, grinning broadly, had slipped away, their moccasined feet giving no intimation of their departure on the mission of the chief.

The time seemed interminable to Frank and the wounded leg gave him much pain, as he twisted and swore at intervals over the long delay in bringing help.

Night had fallen by the time the two bandits reached the opening of the cave. They had proceeded only a short distance beyond when their keen ears caught the sound of approaching footsteps.

Quickly secreting themselves and crouching low the men awaited the nearer approach of the strangers, eyes keenly bent in the direction of the faint sound they had heard beyond.

They had only a moment to wait.

Tony nudged his companion and nodded his head.

"Them's them," he ejaculated sententiously.

"And by my spurs he's a giant," added Texas.

"Yes, and there the gal behind him, Tex. She's a wonder."

"There's some things worse'n some squaws," replied Texas.

"S—h—h—h," cautioned Tony.

"I'll take the big one and you get the girl, but don't hurt her. Give her a hunch as to what we're up to as soon as you get your clamps on her. Now."

Silently and with bated breaths, the two desperadoes waited until the medicine man, who indeed did loom up a veritable giant in stature, had passed Texas.

He was right beside Tony now, and so close that the bandit could easily have reached out and touched him. But Tony did not propose to adopt the ordinary methods of catching an Indian and for the very good reason that he had no ordinary man to deal with.

His plans had been quickly matured. And what he did was successful from the very novelty of the proceeding.

What Tony did was to shove a stout stick squarely between the medicine man's shins, at the same time giving a quick, sharp twist.

The effect was magical.

The Indian plunged head foremost to the ground, his feet waving wildly in the air for a moment. But before he could gain equilibrium or cry out, the same stout stick came down on his head with crushing force.

The copper-hued sawbones lay still.

"Holy snakes!" exclaimed Texas with genuine admiration. "Ef that ain't the all-firedest way to catch a doctor that I ever seen. Here, my pretty squaw, you're my prisoner too. Now come along like a good little papoose."

Dew Drop, with a surprised look in her eyes, turned to flee. Texas caught her.

"Keep yer head plumb. We're just makin' believe capturin' you and when old sawbones wakes up we'll have you tied so he don't get wise to your little game. See?"

A smile slowly rippled over the face of the little red girl.

"Pale face smart like Indian," she answered, nodding her head vigorously. "Um hurry. Big Bear and braves up yonder. Come for Jess Jame pretty soon."

"Jess?" questioned Tony rising from the medicine man whose arms and hands he had been pinioning. "By the way, where's the chief. He went with you, didn't he?"

Dew Drop shook her head.

"Dew Drop no see um."

"That's funny. Lend a hand here, Texas and let's get this red devil into the cave. No need to blindfold him now—"

"Didn't put out his light, did you Tony?" asked Texas a bit anxiously.

"Kill him? N—a—w. Head's too thick to break if a log fell on it."

It was no easy task to get the inanimate form of the giant to the cave. At first they essayed to carry him, one at the head, the other at the feet.

Tony dropped his burden in disgust.

"Say, Texas, come here. This is too much like work. Jest get hold of his feet with me and we'll drag him the rest of the way—"

"But it will hurt him," protested Texas.

"What, hurt a redskin? G'wan. It'll wake him up, that's all, and he'll be fit as a fiddle when we git him into the cave. Come along."

The way was rough and the sacred medicine man got the roughest voyage of his life for the next few moments. And as Tony had predicted, by the time they had reached the entrance to the cave, his eyes were open and he was glaring at his captors with malignant eyes. He could speak no word because Tony with rare forethought had twisted a gag into his mouth, fearing that should the man come to he might give the alarm and bring down some lurking savages on them.

Just before reaching the mouth of the cave Texas, at his companion's bidding, bound a handkerchief over the prisoner's eyes. Then with great caution, they hauled him into the hole in the rocks.

Being a large man the savage went through the smaller hole opening into the large chamber, with much less ease than had the bandits. In fact they had pulled him only half way through when he stuck there fast.

"Can't make it. He's too fat," decided Texas.

"Can't? Wait. I know the breed. He's making himself fat—swelling himself out. Here you savage," roared Tony, "we're going to give a good long pull and if you don't come through we'll fix you so you do."

The medicine man grunted.

"That's right, grunt. But you'll grunt harder when I get through with you. And understand me, and if you don't get through this time, Harry here will slice off a few slabs of flesh so you'll fit. Harry'll do a good job too, and don't you forget it, for he used to slaughter cattle on a range out in Missouri. Now draw in your belly unless you want to lose some skin. Heave away boys."

The bandits counting, "one, two, three," gave a mighty pull.

This time the medicine man came through, but little rivulets of blood trickled down his sides as they pulled him into the brilliantly lighted room. There they removed his blindfold and released his arms, after first taking possession of his knife.

The redskin's glance swept the room, then rested on Dew Drop.

But the little Indian maiden was acting her part to perfection. Tied hand and foot, she had been stood against one side of the chamber, where she rested, her eyes blazing with well-assumed hate at her captors.

"Big Bear kill um pale faces," she gritted.

"Never you mind about Big Bear," retorted Tony. "If there's any killing going on we will take a hand in it ourselves. We shall not hurt you if you keep quiet—"

"Indian girl no fraid white man. She stick um knife some day, maybe."

"Ho, ho," roared Texas.

"Our little pussey has sharp claws," interjected Homely Harry.

Frank had been taken into the next chamber, an apartment somewhat smaller than the one they were in, and there they carried the Indian medicine man after having instructed him as to what was expected of him.

They planked him down beside the wounded man.

Frank's right hand slipped down to his trusty "Colt."

But the Indian made no move.

Tony's face grew stony.

"You red devil," he cried, "don't get stubborn. Do as we demand and no harm will come to you, but if you don't fix this man up inside of ten minutes—by the watch, remember—you're a dead Indian. Get busy!"

The Indian bent a keen glance on Tony, then looked sharply from one to the other of the assemblage as if to satisfy himself that he was not being tricked.

But there was no trickery lurking at the corners of the stern mouths of the desperate men.

"Kill um pale face," urged Dew Drop with a vicious snap of the jaws.

"Ugh," grunted the medicine man with a shake of his head, as he slowly began drawing a variety of herbs from his belt. These he quickly meshed together with a stone, and, forming them into a poultice applied it to the wounds of Frank James.

The latter let out a yell and tugged at his gun.

But Tony anticipating just such a move, closed over his wrist in a vice-like grip.

"Easy pard," he cautioned. "The poultice is drawing out the pizen. It won't hurt but a minute, will it old sawbones?" peering up into the savage face before him for confirmation of his words.

"White man cry out, then hurt go way," grunted the savage.

"There, what did I tell you," chortled Tony. "Poultice goes on, you yell like—like—like you did, and pain goes away. That's it."

"Oh, shut up," snarled Frank, the lines of his face drawing sharply under the excruciating pain he was enduring.

"How—how long is this going to keep up?" he demanded.

"Yes, when can the captain get out again?" chimed in Homely Harry.

"White man walk byemby," returned the man of herbs. "Before sun up he go out. Then mebbe Indian kill um."

"That's alright, Reddy; we'll be there for the killing. But we don't 'low we've got any hard feelings again you. Hey, boys?"

"Sure not," chorused the others.

Crossing the medicine man's palm with a gold piece, to his intense surprise and satisfaction, they again led him into the vaulted chamber and releasing Dew Drop bade her bind the cloth about his eyes once more.

Tony seeing that his orders were being obeyed, had stepped back to speak to Frank as to the best means of disposing of their prisoners. As he turned he observed that the Indian girl was feeding embers to the fire the better to light their way out.

But the desperado had no more than turned his back on the savage and the girl ere the rocks beneath him were shaken by a mighty tremor.

A sudden and awful roar smote his ears.

A fearful blow seemed to have been struck across his eyes.

The air was full of hurling rocks and debris.

Tony and his companions were tumbled together in a confused heap, yelling in terror at the awful thing that had happened, though they knew not what it meant.

Rocks and particles rained down upon their bodies with sickening force.

But the desperate men neither heard nor felt now.

A sudden darkness had settled over them and they lay motionless and lifeless.

A mighty explosion had rent the cave from end to end.

Chapter X.

IN A LIVING TOMB.

It might have been hours for aught they knew that they had lain there.

Frank was the first to regain consciousness. He heard someone groan and called out demanding whose voice it was.

"It's Tony, or what little is left of him," was the answer.

"Are you hurt?"

"Donno. Feel as if the roof had caved in on me. Where's the rest of the gang?"

"If they only have got out of it as easily as we have we can count ourselves the luckiest men on earth," returned the elder James boy with emphasis.

Forgetting his recent wound, which the herbs of the medicine man had most miraculously put to sleep so that he felt no pain at all, Frank struggled to his feet and struck a match. Texas and Harry he espied lying in a heap in one corner half hidden by the debris which had fallen upon them.

Out of the wreck he gathered some sticks and rekindled the fire which in a moment brightly illuminated the chamber. The scene that met his gaze was one of wreck and ruin.

But to this the bandit gave no heed. His first care was for the other members of the band.

"They're alive, Tony," he cried, "every man of them. Come help me get them out—"

"You'll have to get Tony out first, I'm thinkin'. I'm wedged in here under this heap of stuff tighter'n a sardine in a box."

It was but the work of a moment for Frank to release the imprisoned desperado, and after taking careful inventory of his anatomy and learning to his delight that no bones had been broken, both men turned to with a will and began digging out their companions.

"Thank Providence, or whatever or whoever did it, that my flask was not broken," exclaimed Frank.

"Here, hold Texas's head while I pour a few fingers down his throat. That'll bring him around if anything will."

And it did. Texas gasped, strangled, sat up and swore roundly.

The others were quickly restored to consciousness and the men were overjoyed that all had escaped.

"Say," spoke up Tony suddenly. "That explosion come from that other room there. What do you s'pose did it—"

"And the medicine man and the squaw were in there alone, weren't they?" asked Frank.

"By the gods you're right," exclaimed Texas.

With one accord each man grabbed up a burning brand and climbing over the obstructions that the explosion had placed in their way, dashed into the adjoining chamber.

If anything the disaster had been greater here than in the other room.

"There's the redskin all shot to pieces," cried Harry.

"Yes, deader'n a tick," agreed Texas. "But where is the gal?"

"Yes, where is the girl?" demanded Frank suddenly aroused to action.

"Blown into little pieces. She's too tender to stand a racket that would put out a giant like the medicine man," opined Tony. "But where the devil is she? There ain't no pieces of her layin' about here as I sees. It makes a feller shivery—like—kinder weak under the belt."

"Dig! Dig like hell every man of you!" roared Frank in a frenzy of haste at thought that the girl who had proved such a friend in need might be dying within a few feet of them for want of a willing hand to give her succor.

They set to with a will.

"Dew Drop here," piped a voice that seemed to come out of the air, but from just what direction none could say.

They looked about; peered into every corner and crevice, then faced each other questioningly.

"Hello!" shouted Frank, but only the echoes of his own voice came back to him.

"Mebby it's the Great Spirit she was tellin' us about," suggested Texas with a hoarseness in his throat that he tried vainly to down. "She's a dead one that's sure—"

"Dew Drop no go Happy Hunting Ground; Medicine man he go Happy Hunting Ground. Mebby Jesse Jame he happy Hunting Ground," came in the plaintive tone of the Indian maiden.

It was maddening.

In a moment these hardy desperadoes who had faced death in a thousand forms, would feel their courage oozing from their finger tips and would make a run for the outer air.

"Where are you?" roared Frank. "Are you dead or alive?"

"Me here; me no with Great Spirit."

"Where?" bellowed Tony. "Where in the humping pizen snakes be you anyhow? You sound as if you was over my head, but if you be you're a dead one, and that goes."

Frank with a sudden thought in his mind was shading his eyes from the flaming torches and peering up into the shadows. There, more than ten feet above their heads, he saw the form of the little Indian maiden wedged in a crevice of rocks where she had evidently been hurled by the sudden explosion.

The men shouted for pure joy.

"Jump, you little devil," shouted Texas, "we'll catch you."

"Paleface say well. Dew Drop no jump."

"Not jump? Don't be afraid," reassured Frank.

"Dew Drop um no jump. Um fast," she wailed.

"She's wedged in between the rocks," yelled Tony. "Git a ladder somebody quick."

Everybody laughed but it was evident that Tony in his excitement was in dead earnest.

"Yes, how we going to git the gal down?" demanded Texas.

"Can't one of you take a running jump and reach her?" cried Frank. "If my leg wasn't game I'd do it myself."

"Yes, you would," sneered Tony. "You ain't no bird and neither be I. That's twelve feet if its one up there."

"I've got an idee," interrupted Homely Harry. "I'll stand agin the wall and you fellers climb up on top of me, one top of tother. I've seen 'em do that in a circus once. We kin git her down that way."

Frank shot an approving glance at him.

"You're the only one in the bunch that's got a head on his shoulders about now I reckon. I ain't much on the climb, but try it and if you don't get her, I'll go to the top of the pile myself."

The agile mountaineers formed a human pyramid in a moment with Texas as the top-mounter, Tony groaning beneath his weight and threatening every moment to give way sending the pyramid a bruised and broken wreck to the hard stone floor of the cave.

It was with no little effort that they finally accomplished the feat of releasing the girl from her rocky prison.

But once free she slid down the pyramid with the grace of a lofty tumbler.

Tony and Texas came down rather less easily.

"Now I want to know what this is all about?" demanded Frank when they once more had recovered themselves.

"Yes, what devil's prank put this joint on the blink?" added Tony. "I've had some jars in my time, but I never did have such an all-fired bump as this one."

"Me not know," answered Dew Drop hanging her head.

"What were you and the bones doing when it happened?" urged Frank, pointing to the mangled remains of the medicine man.

Dew Drop gazed at the horrid sight with emotionless eyes, then turned toward them.

"Me make fire burn one—two times—"

"Yes, yes," they chorused.

"You put wood on the fire to make it bright," added Frank.

The Indian girl nodded.

"What then?"

"Make fire more.

"Then heap fire like sun. Dew Drop go sleep. Great Spirit get um. Dew Drop open eyes—see pale faces and um want see Dew Drop."

Harry scratched his head.

"Clear as the big Muddy in a spring freshet," agreed Tony.

"Wait a minute," commanded Frank, raising a restraining hand.

"You put one, two, three sticks on fire, then you put another?"

Dew Drop nodded vigorously.

"But when you put on the fourth one, hey?"

"Um pale face he know."

"Then the whole business went up?"

Dew Drop puffed out her cheeks and said "Pouf! So."

"Well I'll be damned!" exclaimed Frank.

"What is it?" demanded Texas.

"What was it?" urged Tony.

"Dynamite!" snapped the desperado holding the girl with a wondering gaze. "And you near put us all out of business at the same time.

"Yes, dynamite. I understand it all now. Jess must have left those sticks here and the girl used one of them to build the fire with. It's a wonder it didn't blow us all to kingdom come."

A loud guffaw greeted Frank's explanation.

All danger past they could afford to look on the humorous side of the disaster now.

"Well, we got rid of old saw bones quicker'n we thought," chuckled Tony. "Good thing Jesse wasn't here. It might have got him too, for he'd a been right on top of it likely as not."

"Jess. I had forgotten," cried Frank. "What has become of him? He's got into trouble, I'll bet my spurs on it. It must have been hours since he went away.

"Say Dew Drop, did he go with you?"

The girl shook her head.

The men looked into each other's faces in dismay.

"Come, we must find him," cried Frank, his face narrowing down until the lines of it laid up in projecting, stern wrinkles.

"Mebbe Big Bear git um Jess Jame," vouchsafed the girl stoically.

"What's that?" demanded Frank suddenly turning on her.

"Mebbe sojers git um Jess Jame."

"Soldiers. No, they're miles away to the north of us by now. We headed them toward the fort hours ago."

"Sojers come back," averred the girl.

"Came back? How do you know?"

"Me see um, Me see injuns. Injuns he look for Jess Jame."

"The girl is right," roared Frank. "Out of this devilish hole. They've got him. What can one man do against a company of infantry and a whole village of redskins. Come!"

The bandit strode toward the opening whence they had first entered, then stopped short.

"Trapped!" he cried hoarsely.

"The explosion has blocked our entrance. We're caught like rats in a trap."

The outlaws groaned.

Hoarse curses and muttered imprecations were passed from lip to lip as the enraged desperadoes ran from point to point seeking in vain for some means of egress from their rocky tomb.

"We're done for," snarled Tony, his hand slipping instinctively to his pistol holster.

"Jess will get us out somehow," soothed Harry.

"No. Jess is probably in a worse fix than we are at this very minute," exploded Frank, "and—"

A timid pressure on his arm caused him to look suddenly down.

"Well, what is it?" he demanded shortly. "Haven't you got us into enough trouble already? What do you want now? Say it and say it quick."

"Pale face um want go way?"

"Want to? Holy snakes, hear the girl," laughed Tony harshly. "I calkerlate it don't make a mighty sight of difference whether we want to or not. We don't."

"Silence!" commanded Frank.

"Well, what is it, girl?"

"Pale face want go—Dew Drop want go. Um show pale face."

So astounded were the outlaws at her amazing confidence in her ability to pilot them to freedom, that for a moment no one answered, and by the time they had gathered their wits again, Dew Drop was tripping on velvet feet to the chamber they had just left.

They sprang after her eagerly, but just in time to see the girl disappear behind a pyramid of rock and which they now discovered for the first time, led into another passage.

"Hold on," called Tony, "you're taking us further into this infernal hole."

But Dew Drop made no reply.

Her confident manner brought hope to the bandit's hearts almost in spite of their determination not to be trapped at any cost.

"Bring lights," commanded Frank.

They did so.

As they progressed they noticed that their course was leading them up and up, further and further, and with each rise of the trail their spirits ascended proportionately.

"Hooray! I see moonlight," cried Texas. "By gad we're getting out as sure as you're alive."

Dew Drop turned and laid a warning finger on her lips, and bent her head in a listening attitude.

"What is it?" they demanded in bated breaths.

"Injuns," breathed the Indian maiden.

Each right slipped to pistol holster.

"Indians," muttered the desperadoes, and "Colts" were quickly unsheathed.

Chapter XI.

JESSE JAMES' DESPERATE LEAP.

Not a man moved.

Every rifle was turned on the prostrate man.

The captain peered suspiciously at the form of the great desperado for a moment, then nodded his satisfaction.

"Cease firing!" he commanded.

Placing a whistle to his lips the officer blew a short, shrill blast. Two troopers in response, came dashing up on their ponies, saluted and sat at attention awaiting their leader's commands.

"Boys, we have got him at last," he said, addressing the two troopers. "That's Jesse James over there on his back. Sorry we had to kill him. But it's my opinion he's safer that way. I knew we should get him in time. Outlaws may fool posses indefinitely, but when it comes to beating the United States Cavalry, that's different. Young man," he continued, "let this be an object lesson to you in persistance. Four times within the past twenty-four hours I am free to confess we have been outwitted by the world's greatest desperado, but each time we came back stronger than ever and as full of fight. You see the result. We have done our full duty."

"Yes, but what shall we do with the body, bury it or roll it into the gully somewhere hereabouts?" asked the Lieutenant, stepping over toward the body of the outlaw, then turning back.

"Neither. Have some saplings cut and make a litter between two ponies. We must get him to the fort immediately before it is too late. No one would ever believe we had killed the world's greatest bandit unless we had something better to show for it than our mere word. It is not that they would doubt our word, but the rub is they know Jesse James," he grinned. "And so do we," he added grimly.

"Make haste now. We'll surely have the redskins down on us after all this racket, and we've made a lot of it, I reckon."

"I'll attend to it at once, sir," responded the Lieutenant.

"Throw out pickets!" ordered the commander. "We are in a dangerous strategical position here."

"But what about the rest of the gang—do we go after them?" asked the Lieutenant after executing his superior officer's commands.

"Yes, we might as well clean house thoroughly while we are about it. Let two men ride in with the body. They should reach the fort by daybreak. We will remain here with the rest of the troop and finish up the job. It should be easy to at least disperse the gang, now that their leader has turned up his toes for the last time. It has been a good job, Lieutenant, eh?"

The young officer nodded and smiled, for his share in the great achievement had been no small one and in all probability would bring him much nearer to having a command of his own at no distant day.

With the others, the army officer's words were accepted as final. Meantime the troopers had constructed a litter and were now engaged in dragging it to the spot where Jesse lay face up on the rocks, the moonbeams lighting up his face with a ghastly pallor, to the strained imagination of the soldiers.

At a motion from the Lieutenant, the two mounted men rode their ponies to the scene and sprang from their saddles to lift the inanimate form of the fallen desperado to the litter to be conveyed to the fort some thirty miles away.

The men's Winchesters reposed safely in their saddle holsters, and the ponies, unmindful of the tragic scene before them, calmly began browsing on the tender underbrush.

The two troopers bent over to lift the body to the litter that the others were bringing up.

At that instant a strange and unexpected thing happened.

The supposed dead man moved.

Both arms shot out and the moon beams caught and reflected a steely glint in each hand.

With lightning-like quickness the bandit's hands shot into the shadows formed by the bodies of the two troopers. The movement was so slight as to have been almost indistinguishable two paces away.

The soldiers with a groan settled down in a heap.

Yet nothing of the tragedy being enacted before their very eyes, conveyed itself to the troopers just beyond, and the Captain was calling out some order to the men that the bandit had laid low. They did not know that two of their companions lay dying there, their life blood staining the virgin rocks.

"Hey, what is going on over there?" shouted the Captain, his keen eyes noting something unusual in the attitude of his men.

There was no response.

"Lieutenant, you had better straighten out those men."

With one movement, the great bandit had driven his bowies straight into the hearts of the unsuspecting soldiers. In bending over him to raise his body to the litter, they had presented a mark that the veriest novice at man-killing, could not have missed by any chance.

Their blood in crimson stream spurted into the face and eyes of the blood-thirsty desperado, but the only emotion it stirred in him was to arouse him to deepest anger.

Not a bullet of the death-dealing volley had reached Jesse. With that marvelous instinct that had saved his life on so many occasions in the past, the outlaw had sensed the danger that confronted him, he knew that the eyes of enemies were upon him, but whether of white men or redskins, he did not know.

Instantly his quick mind evolved a plan. He knew that death yawned in the shadows there, which one false move would precipitate upon him. With Jesse James, to think was to act.

He dropped at the instant when twenty Winchesters hurled their death missiles at him. But the leaden pellets sped harmlessly over his head.

Instead of leaping to his feet and making a desperate dash for liberty, as a less experienced man in the art of guerilla warfare might have done, the great bandit stiffened out and lay motionless in well-feigned emulation of death.

His ruse was successful.

But now the moment for action had arrived. Yet he did not move a muscle and respiration seemed to have ceased utterly.

One of the ponies moved a step forward, having sighted a fresh bit of tender verdure. Its body was thus projected between the main arm of the troop and the prostrate outlaw, hiding his movements from them.

With a blood-curdling yell that sent terror to the hearts of the soldiers for an instant, Jesse leaped to the startled pony's back. He seemed to spring from the ground as if impelled by some giant spring.

So unexpected had been the move that the troops stood paralyzed—unable to move hand or foot. In fact, no comprehension of the real meaning of the scene—of the terrible tragedy that had taken place before their very eyes—had forced itself into their minds.

The outlaw's yell of defiance had accomplished the exact result that he had intended it should.

"It's James!" roared the Captain in a fearful rage.

"Take aim!

"Fire!"

Twenty Winchesters crashed, a dull flash of flame lighted up the scene and was instantly lost in a pall of suffocating smoke, the reverberations from the explosion, thundering from peak to peak of the surrounding mountains.

The command was repeated and again the guns of the troopers spoke hoarsely.

Coincident with the first volley the outlaw had thrown himself down on the horse's side, away from the attacking force, Indian fashion. He was a master of every trick known to savage warfare, learned in the school of Quantrell years before.

So suddenly had he gone down that at first they thought he had fallen. But the world's greatest outlaw was not thus easily to be disposed of.

"It's a trick," yelled the Captain.

He was goaded to desperation.

"Fire at will!" he commanded.

"Give it to him! Shoot low and fast!"

Still another heavy volley broke the stillness.

"Mount and pursue!" came the stern command.

Jesse rose in his saddle and swung the Winchester that he had drawn from the saddle holster, on his enemies.

Two soldiers bit the dust.

The troopers sprang to saddle. The death of their companions had filled them with mad lust for the blood of the desperado. Now they were yelling like a band of Indians who had discovered that their coveted prey was almost within their grasp.

The fleeing bandit made a sudden discovery. The opposite side of the circle of troops was drawing in on him. But instead of taking alarm, Jesse was quick to note the advantage that their manoeuvre gave him. The newcomers fired a volley into the air to warn the Captain of their location that he might not fire into the ranks of his own men.

Jesse shouted a jeer, and rising in his saddle again, pumped his Winchester first into the ranks of one body of troops and then into the other side, continuing to yell like a Comanche Indian on the warpath.

It was maddening. Not a shot was fired in answer by the enemy.

A blast of the bugle had commanded the troops to "cease firing."

"Charge!"

The notes of the command rippled musically from the bugler's horn and the troops, swinging to saddle as one man, swept down in pursuit.

They were moving in a half circle formation, now.

"We've got him this time, sure," exulted the Captain.

"Depends on whether our horses are faster than his, which I very much doubt," objected the Lieutenant.

"You've still got a few things to learn, young man," retorted his superior officer. "When you have been in the service longer you'll find out an officer has to use his eyes and every other sense that nature has given him, if he expects to save his hide, letting alone catching the enemy."

"I don't catch you," shouted the Lieutenant above the sound of the fleet-footed rushing ponies.

"He is headed for the canyon. That's what I mean."

"The canyon! Good God!" gasped the young officer.

"Surrender!" roared the Captain.

"It's sure death to go on."

The desperado rose in his stirrups. He again emptied his Winchester into the ranks of the pounding troop on his flanks.

The feel of the swift-moving little Indian pony beneath him, filled him with unholy joy. On a fleet-footed animal the great outlaw feared neither man nor beast, and in very truth, few of the wild men or savages of the turbulent west, were his equals in the saddle any more than they were when it came to quickness on the trigger.

Three ponies fell as the result of his deadly fire, and as many riders were hurled into the air, an instant later to fall with a sickening thud as they struck the hard ground.

But the outlaw did not turn to note the result of his fusilade. He had other momentous things to occupy his mind at that moment.

Casting his Winchester aside he threw his full weight on his toes in the stirrups and sat crouching like some wild animal about to spring upon its unsuspecting prey.

The desperado's eyes were fixed and staring.

Ahead of him yawned the black and awful abyss.

Driving in the rowels of his spurs until the pinto snorted with pain, Jesse fairly threw the hardy little Indian pony at the rocky canyon.

"My God, he is going over!" cried the Lieutenant, aghast at the awful leap the great bandit was about to take.

"He don't see it! He don't see it!

"Halt! The canyon!" roared the young officer in the stress of his excitement. For the moment he had forgotten that the man he was warning was he for whose death half a continent was clamoring.

"He knows it, you fool!" snarled the Captain. "Don't you see he's going to jump it?"

"But its certain death."

"So is this," gritted the commander of the troop. "It's death either way he takes it, back or front.

"Call the halt or we'll be going over with him, the whole pack and parcel of us."

The bugle sounded its warning short and sharp.

On the very brink of the precipice stood a giant spreading oak, and into it's broad shadow the world-famous desperado drove his mount, a veritable living projectile in its undeviating flight.

The notes of the bugle trilled again and the horses of the troopers slid to their haunches perilously near the brink.

"Fire!" rang the stern command.

Once more the heavy Winchesters crashed.

A wild yell greeted the volley.

But whether of pain or triumph they did not know.

With a scream of awful fright, the pony leaped high in the air and plunged far out and over the terrible precipice. They heard his body buffeted from rock to rock in its descent. And finally as they listened they caught the sound of the impact when it struck for the last time on the rocks far below.

Not a man spoke. They were too full of wonder and horror for speech.

A heavy silence had fallen over the scene of death.

Chapter XII.

IN THE HANDS OF THE REDSKINS.

"Well, I guess that will be about all—that settles the career of the world's greatest bandit," averred the Captain.

Both officers and men stood on the brink of the black chasm, gazing down fearsomely into the apparently bottomless pit. The thought of the fearful plunge that they had just witnessed, had a sobering effect on all of them. It had stirred within the men an emotion almost akin to fear, and each trooper as he turned away, felt a little chill trickle up and down his spinal column, all in spite of his stern effort to repress it. Hated as was the great outlaw, the soldiers rated him as a brave man, a quality that touches a responsive chord in every soldier's breast.

The Captain broke the silence, his words falling on them almost like a blow.

"No living man could come out of that fall alive," he continued. "It is a sheer drop of more than two hundred feet to the bottom of the gulch, and there isn't a ghost of a show for anything human or inhuman that goes over it.

"Lieutenant, take a squad of men and ride north until you strike the entrance to the gorge. The water is low at this time of the year and you can easily get up to the point where the bandit and the pinto struck. This time there won't be any question about it. He won't look very pretty, but we've got to get him to the fort as soon as possible, for the weather is warm."

"Right, sir; but I should like to know how he played that scurvy trick on us?" demanded the Lieutenant. "I can't get it through my head how our men ever missed him."

"That is elemental. He lay down before the volley was fired!"

"That's all right, Captain, but I still don't understand how he knew we were going to shoot," persisted the Lieutenant.

"Because he was Jesse James. That's the only answer I can give you. I made my mistake when I failed to order a volley fired into him after he was down. That's the trouble when troops are opposed to savages and outlaws. We fight according to the rules of civilized warfare while they—well, they are just common murderers. Warfare to them is only assassination.

"Have the recall sounded, then start for the gulch. Jesse James is dead for the last time."

But once more the army officer had been tricked.

In a pure game of wits, he with all his military training and his experience in fighting savages, had been outwitted. When it came to pitting one man in a battle of wits against another, Jesse James had no known peer. He never seemed to come to the end of his resources, and the most desperate situations, the moments of the gravest peril, gave him not the slightest apprehension as to the ultimate outcome. He was able to cope with them all, come when and how they might.

As he lay, back down, on the rocks, after the first volley had been fired by the troops, the great desperado formed his plans concisely and definitely, and these plans, as it proved, he followed without the slightest deviation.

Jesse had heard the command of the Captain to prepare a litter and it brought a sardonic grin to his hardy face.

"They sure will need that litter themselves before I get through with them," he muttered.

The outlaw reasoned with marvelous precision, just what the soldiers would do, and, therefore, his quickly laid plans worked out without the slightest slip or miscarriage.

The great oak tree on the brink of the precipice proved Jesse's salvation, as he proposed that it should. Had it not been there, another and different ending to his escapade, might have resulted.

But the officers did not attach any special significance to the fact that the outlaw had driven his pony straight for the tree in his mad flight from them, seeing only in the act a desire to put an end to himself rather than fall into the hands of the United States Government. Still the tree was the key note to the situation—the one factor that enabled him to elude his pursuers, and at the same time save himself from being dashed to certain death on the rocks two hundred feet below.

As his pony shot into the shadow, Jesse raised himself in his stirrups and caught a low-lying limb. With the agility of a trapeeze performer he drew his body up and free of the horse just at the instant when the bullets of the troops sang by beneath him and the screaming pinto went dashing to its death.

Like a squirrel, Jesse ran up the trunk of the tree, and there he perched, his body convulsed with fiendish glee at the neat trick he had turned on the cavalry troop for the second time that night. And it was with intense interest that he listened to the comments of the officers down below.

"So, Jesse James is dead, eh?" he chuckled.

Yet at that moment the supposed dead man held with steady hand, a heavy "Colt," trained on the redoubtable captain. The officer was nearer to death than he ever knew, and Jesse himself, was not so far from it as he thought.

It was a relief, however, that he noted the final departure of the troops. Jesse was anxious to get back to the cave. He wondered that none of the band had been out in search of him. This augured trouble of some sort. And he wondered too, how successful Dew Drop had been in corralling Great Bear's medicine man, for he felt that the need of the herb doctor's services, was urgent. Perhaps that was where the rub lay—perhaps his whole outfit had been picked up by the redskins.

It suddenly occurred to the desperado too, that no redskin had shown himself during the melee. Certainly they had not been so deaf as not to have heard the bombardment of the cavalrymen.

"There's sure something doing," he muttered. "Things look kinder ticklish."

Jesse decided that it would be wise to get away while the coast was clear. The troops were now well out of the way.

But his cogitations were rudely interrupted by a guttural grunt at the foot of the tree.

Jesse started.

He recognized the sound. No other than a redskin could give vent to an exclamation like that.

The desperado's gun came out in a flash. He peered down through the foliage, dimly making out the figure of a savage. Perhaps the Indian was alone, but more than likely there were others nearby.

The outlaw, adopting the policy of the savages, waited patiently for further developments. But all hope of the redskin not being aware of his presence in the tree, was shattered a moment later.

"Ugh," said the Indian.

"Great snakes," muttered Jesse.

"Jesse James, um up tree," announced the Indian stoically.

"That I am for certain," growled the great bandit chieftain, under his breath.

"Jesse James um in a fix."

"Great Bear, as I'm alive," whispered Jesse, slipping down the tree trunk a few feet.

"Pale face um fool sojers. Um no fool Great Bear. Great Bear um see many things. Um see sojers shoot Jess Jame. Great Bear know um not shoot Jess Jame. Jess Jame he play possum. Ugh. Great Bear um wait. Um want pale face for umself. Huh."

"Well, you've got another guess coming," retorted the outlaw.

Jesse began parleying to gain time. He first wanted to know if the chief was alone, which fact was all-important to him in his present predicament.

"Great Bear go away," he called down gently. "Great Spirit up here in tree," he crooned with subtle cunning.

"No, no!" protested the chief, "Great Spirit not for pale face. Great Spirit stay Indian."

The great desperado fingered his guns nervously. It required all the self control he could impose upon himself to refrain from shooting the redskin, where he stood in plain view of the man up the tree. It was a terrible temptation, but the bandit-chieftain resented it manfully.

"All right, old moccasin foot, we'll see about that later!"

Great Bear, he realized had been a witness to his brush with the cavalry troops; but with a cunning characteristic of the savage that he was, had viewed it with keener eyes than had the officers of the troop.

"Um Jess Jame come down," grunted the chief.

"Jesse James will come down when he gets good and ready, you greasy old cutthroat," he jeered. "Great Bear had better look out or my men will shoot him in the back. Do you think I'd let you stand there making threats at me all this time without killing you, if I hadn't known my men had you covered. You are not half so smart as you think you are, eh?"

The old chief did not change his position in the least.

But meanwhile Jesse was cautiously making his way down the trunk of the tree, yet in doing so not so much as displacing the smallest particle of dry bark whose falling would warn the savage of his approach.

"Ugh," grunted the chief.

"Ugh it yourself," threw back the desperado.

"Um lie. Great Bear um know Jess Jame. No paleface get Great Bear. Paleface all gone. Indians here—Great Spirit here. Indian in bush—many Indian in bush there," indicating a half circle by a sweep of his hand.

"Ah," exclaimed the desperado.

Jesse had drawn from the big chief the very information he was seeking. He knew now that the savage was alone. "When an Indian tells you a thing is so, you know it isn't," was Jesse's motto and it was the one he applied to the present case.

Still, he dared not use his guns.

Great Bear, perhaps, following the same process of reasoning, stood confidently awaiting the moment when the desperado should find it convenient to move.

"Pale face no jump. Um fall down big hole like pinto," he warned.

"Don't worry, my sweet papoose," jeered the outlaw. "Jesse James don't jump down holes, nor does he run away. But he's going to kill an Indian bye and bye, when he gets down. But paleface going to stay up here till Big chief gets sore feet waiting for him. Good night, you old dog-eater."

The great desperado laughed and chuckled, all with a purpose, but not so loudly at any time that his voice could easily be heard beyond the circle of shadow thrown by the great tree.

"Ugh. Pale face, dog—" retorted the savage.

But he got no further.

Like a flying projectile, a dark object was hurled from the tree. Straight did it speed at the copper-hued savage below, and as true as if it had been from a mountain battery.

The projectile was none other, however, than the great desperado himself. With rare cunning, Jesse had step by step, drawn the chief's attention from his real purpose, the while occupying the time in getting into the most advantageous position for the carrying out of his plans.

The outlaw's flying body with unerring aim, hit the savage fair and square and both men went down in a heap.

Great Bear uttered a grunt of terrible rage, but could not speak. The terrific impact of Jesse's heavy body striking him, knocked all the wind out of his savage body.

But the Indian's arms suddenly closed over the desperado in a crushing grip. Jesse, tough and muscular as he was, felt that his ribs were being slowly, but relentlessly crushed in.

Neither man spoke a word at first, each playing for an advantage that would enable him to reach his knife.

One of Jesse's bowies that he held in his teeth, when he jumped, was lost at the moment his body struck that of Great Bear.

The desperado now discovered that his antagonist was working slowly toward the precipice. But whether he thought to frighten the outlaw or whatever his motive, Jesse checkmated it.

"S-s-o—that's y-o-u-r g-g-a-m-e is it?" he gritted, "you black hearted savage. All right, if you want to go over, come on."

Great Bear changed his mind instantly.

"Jess Jame um brave man. But Injun kill um," he hissed between breaths.

Over and over the combatants rolled, first one gaining a slight advantage which would be quickly lost to the other. Great Bear on his side possessed one advantage that Jesse did not—he was stripped to the waist while the outlaw was fully clothed. This gave the Indian something to hold to, while Jesse's grip on the perspiring skin of his antagonist was an uncertain thing.

But the bandit king was working his hands upward as frequently and as rapidly as he dared. Once when he had succeeded in forcing Great Bear to his side, with the left hand pinioned under him, Jesse's right shot up and his fingers closed over the savage's right ear. With a grunt of rage Jesse's hand came away covered with blood.

The hand held the ear of his savage antagonist. But the stoical Indian gave no sign that he had been injured. If anything the terrible wound gave him added strength.

A sudden upward expansion of his muscles, chest and abdomen, fairly lifted Jesse into the air.

When the two came down, Jesse was underneath. In a moment more their positions were reversed.

Great Bear's fingers closed over the outlaw's throat, while the desperado's knee forced itself into his adversary's abdomen with terrible force.

The Indian emitted a grunt, which was followed by another as the desperate outlaw bored in and in with the bony knee until it seemed as if the flesh of the other's body must give way and let the knee find an easy path.

The Indian's grasp slackened and Jesse's terrible fist smote him squarely in the face until the blood of the savage spurted into his own eyes.

Again and again the outlaw rained sledge hammer blows on his opponent's face until it was reduced to a bloody pulp. But still the desperate battle waged.

Now and then both men would lay still for a moment, clasped in a desperate embrace, gasping for breath, but speaking no word.

The time for vituperation had passed.

It was now a battle to the death.

They were wonderfully matched. And though Jesse's hands and face were smeared with red blood that showed ghastly in the moonlight, he had sustained no wounds.

In a moment of relaxation he jabbed a thumb with all his force into the savage's eye.

The pain must have been excruciating. But the redskin gave no sign that he sensed its pain.

Great Bear had succeeded in unsheathing his knife, but his hand instantly was pinioned to the ground where the great outlaw held it in a vice-like grip.

All at once Jesse released his hold on the knife hand. The hand with lightning-like quickness shot up to make the fatal thrust.

It got no further.

With a movement equally quick, the desperado caught the hand and with an unexpected movement bent it backward.

"Snap!"

Great Bear cried out, and the hand hung limp.

"Ha, ha! Reached you, did I?" gasped Jesse in triumphant tones.

Great Bear snarled like a wounded animal.

The hand though useless, slipped about the outlaw's neck and the savage's arm pinioned it in a grip of iron, while with his free hand he showered blows on the bandit's side.

Jesse fastened his teeth in the redskin's cheek and when he pulled away there was left a great gaping wound, and the bandit spat out his toll of human flesh.

The Indian's grip on Jesse's neck was released and Great Bear with his free hand dealt his antagonist a frightful blow on the side of his head.

Jesse sunk down and all grew black about him.

With a muffled yell of fiendish joy Great Bear sprang free of his antagonist, throwing Jesse with crushing force to the ground where he lay for a brief moment on his back.

The redskin scrambled for his knife.

It was but the work of an instant for him to secure it.

He made a mighty leap for his desperate, fallen antagonist, his face contorted with the awful passion that was raging within him.

But the brief respite had given Jesse's wonderful recuperative powers, time to act. Yet he lay perfectly still calmly awaiting the onslaught.

The Indian sprang clear of the ground, projecting his body at his fallen antagonist and with gleaming knife held aloft for the fatal blow, was descending upon him with crushing force.

In his rage he did not pause to think or to consider. The lust for human blood overcame all other emotions and blinded the savage's judgment.

The outlaw's eyes were upon him, but this, Great Bear did not know, nor would he have heeded had he seen.

Quicker than the human eye could follow, the desperado's knees doubled up, his legs were drawn back.

The feet shot out with terrific force, catching the savage redskin full in the abdomen.

Great Bear doubled up like a jack knife and catapulted in the air, turning a complete somersault, ending up by landing on his head on the hard rocks some distance away.

The Indian toppled over and lay still.

It was now Jesse's moment to act.

He too sprang into the air.

His heavy boots landed full on the Indian's face, mangling and mutilating it almost beyond human semblance.

But the uncertain footing threw the outlaw from his feet and he fell sprawling over the body of his antagonist.

In an instant he had whirled over.

Again the combatants were locked in a deadly embrace.

It seemed as if human flesh and blood could not stand the terrible gruelling that each desperate man had sustained.

Still the battle waged on as sanguinary as before.

Never had such a desperate fight to the death been known in all that wild, barbarous country, and the story of it has been handed down—told in tepee and at firesides to this day. You can hear it any day should you chance to come across some old trapper or Indian chief when either is in a communicative mood.

But neither man of iron could conquer the other.

Jesse while holding his antagonist down, had pinioned both arms to the ground and with hands in the redskin's hair, was beating his head against the rocks, with an impact that might have been heard for many rods around.

He hoped to wear out his antagonist in this way. Both men's knives had now been lost beyond recovery, and nothing but pure muscular prowess could decide the equal battle.

All at once Jesse sensed that some one was approaching him from the rear, but whether friend or foe, he could not tell, for all behind him was in a deep shadow now.

His guns were still in their holsters, but the sudden strain that the desperado put upon himself to draw them, was futile. The Indian's grasp of iron could not be broken for the infinitesimal space of time that was necessary to give Jesse an opportunity to jerk his "Colts" from their resting place.

With a mighty effort he twisted his antagonist about so that he could partially look behind him.

The discovery that he made was enough to shake the stoutest nerves.

Over him towered the savage, malignant face of a giant Indian.

He held in his hands a club which was descending on Jesse's head with fearful force.

Like a flash the outlaw dodged and the blow fell upon Great Bear's arm, crushing it, and bringing from the warrior a groan of agony.

Jesse sought to free himself from the killing embrace.

He was a second too late.

Again the mighty club was swung on high.

It landed fair on the bandit's head.

The world's greatest desperado toppled over the form of his antagonist, with a subdued moan.

Jesse did not move.

Chapter XIII.

UNDER THE BRANDING IRON.

"Take that rock off my head," Jesse caught himself mumbling as he slowly returned to consciousness.

Two factors had served to save the outlaw's life: One that the Indian behind him had struck him a glancing blow, and the other that Jesse James' skull was too thick to break by any ordinary means.

But the blow had been a terrific one and the outlaw's head throbbed like a locomotive under full headway.

He emitted a subdued groan and tried to move. To his surprise he found he could not.

He was now conscious of shooting pains through his whole body. His arms were stretched above his head, and when he sought to draw them down by his side, he found he could not move them.

Jesse cautiously tried to move his feet, but like the arms, these also refused to respond to his will.

"That's queer," he thought. "I wonder if I'm dead."

He tried to recall the incidents that had preceded his present condition, but his mind was sluggish and just as he would almost come upon a solution of his strange condition, memory would elude him again.

He tried to open his eyes, but the eyelids seemed held down by some irresistible weight.

For a time the desperado sought to gratify the sensation of drowsiness that seemed to steal over him. Then he would suddenly awake with a start, the pain in his body more intense than before.

At last with a mighty effort of will he dragged his heavy eyelids open. At first he could see nothing for the darkness, then little by little he made out his surroundings.

He was in an Indian tepee.

"How did I get here?" he wondered.

He tried and tried to think.

Suddenly memory returned like a blow.

He remembered it all. The desperate battle on the ground—the club that finally had laid him low. But beyond that all was dark.

For a moment he could not make up his mind whether it was night or day, but glancing up he noted that the flap that covered the entrance to the wigwam showed a tiny ray of light through a fine slit that its owner had made for secret observations when within. Jesse wished he might be able to pull himself together sufficiently to get up and peek out.

But the effort to raise only gave him pain.

He sensed that his holsters were still at his sides and by their weight against his leg he judged that his guns must be in their places.

The thought gave him comfort. The outlaw's guns had become as much a part of himself as were his hands or his feet.

As his mind by slow process began to clear, he set about finding out why it was that he could not move—whether he had been seriously wounded or what mysterious force was holding him down.

The discovery came as a distinct shock and roused all the rage that his savage nature was capable of.

He was bound hand and foot.

Jesse's inclination was to give voice to his passions—to hurl invective at his unseen captors, to taunt them, to goad them, but not to plead. Jesse James had pleaded with no man in his eventful life. It was not in his nature to do so, nor would he begin now.

Yet he did not quite understand what manner of torture they had inflicted upon him to put him in such pain. But it was a matter of only a moment or so before he was made acquainted with his exact situation.

The great desperado had been subjected to the humiliation of being bound hand and foot. And more than that, his manacled hands had been triced up to a stake protruding from the ground some eighteen inches, and the feet had been treated similarly. His position was such that the weight of his body was a constant strain upon the thongs that bound him, a strain that extended through his entire body.

Jesse swore a terrible oath.

"I hope I killed the cursed savage," he gritted.

But his fond hopes were dashed almost at the moment of the utterance of them.

The flap was slowly pulled aside and an evil, ghastly face peered in—a face so torn and mutilated that Jesse observed nothing familiar in it.

He stared at it without speaking.

All at once he noticed that an ear was missing from the place where it should have been.

Then Jesse understood.

The face was that of his late antagonist, Great Bear.

The desperado laughed mockingly.

Great Bear jerked aside the flap so viciously that he tore it from its fastenings, allowing it to drop slowly from his lingering grasp as he surveyed his captive with malignant eyes.

"Welcome to our home, old scarred-face," jeered Jesse.

Great Bear made no reply, standing with head erect, searching keenly for some sign of fear or weakening in the face of his captive.

After a time, the redskin squatted on the turf and with chin in hands sat holding the outlaw with a steady gaze. For an hour he sat thus, Jesse glaring back at him with menacing, challenging eyes.

"Ugh! Paleface brave man," he grunted.

"Ugh! Big Chief a dirty cutthroat," retorted Jesse.

"Huh!" said Great Bear.

"I can lick you with one arm tied behind my back, old pizen snake," leered the desperado. "Let me up and I'll show you."

Great Bear rose, and stepping to the door gave a terse, guttural command to some one without. Returning to the wigwam, he squatted down at the great bandit's feet again and resumed his intent gaze into the other's face.

"Well," questioned Jesse, "Am I so purty that you can't keep your eyes off'n me? Think you'll know me when you see me again? I'd know you among a million with that face. I certainly did lam it to you, didn't I? I ought to have killed you when I had the chance up the tree there, but I hated to take an unfair advantage, even of such an old murderer as you are."

While the outlaw was now suffering terrible tortures from his strained position, he gave no sign to the waiting Indian chief.

A silent-footed savage appeared in the doorway, placing before the chief an earthen jar from which a thin curl of smoke ascended.

But even then Jesse did not catch the full significance of the chief's intentions.

From the receptacle the Indian removed a short iron rod. It's end was at white heat.

Great Bear moistened a finger at his lips and touched it. The rod hissed angrily.

Jesse understood now.

It was a branding iron. But still he did not quail, though his passions rose in a perfect storm.

"Paleface like um?" grinned Great Bear once more causing the hot iron to hiss.

"Never ate any," retorted the desperado with a grin that was even more expansive than that of the chief. "Going to brand some stock that you have stolen, eh?"

"Huh! Indian no brand cows. Um brand men. Um burn you."

"Oh, so that's the game is it? You're going to brand me like you would a critter on the range? Well, what do you think my men will do to you if I don't get away from here before you do it? Think they will do anything to you, you black-hearted cur?"

"Paleface no hurt Indian. Paleface all dead."

"That's a lie. One of them is here now watching you. He'll carry the word to the men and if there is not enough of them left he'll go to the fort for help. Guess the soldiers wouldn't do much to you."

Great Bear cast a glance that was almost apprehensive, out through the opening. With an expression that was half snarl, half grunt he drew the branding iron from the pot and squatted down beside the great outlaw, leering down into his face, gloating over the joy that was to be his.

Roughly he tore apart his prisoner's shirt and drove the blunt, white hot iron against his chest.

The iron hissed again. But this time a little thin line of blue smoke curled upward.

Great Bear inhaled a deep breath of heavenly satisfaction as the odour of burning flesh permeated his nostrils.

Jesse steeling himself, glared back at his tormentor. He gave no sign that he sensed the excruciating torture. But the lines of his mouth drew tense and hard.

The redskin replaced the iron in its heating pot and sat gloating over his victim as it burned again to a white heat.

Next he bared the left side of the outlaw and carefully selected his spot with the eyes of an expert, he applied the torture rod, holding it in place with steady, resistless pressure.

The agony that the victim suffered was almost more than human being could endure.

But still the man of iron there at the stake made no outcry, gave no sign, still smiling up at his tormentor. But the eyes were not in sympathy with the smile on the lips. They were cold and steely—they were the eyes of the gun-expert at the moment when he is about to take the life of a human being.

"Great Bear," began Jesse in an even, emotionless voice. "I shall be going away from here pretty soon. You will be dead then. I shall kill you. But before I go I am going to cut out your tongue and feed it to the dogs. Then I shall cut off your other ear and give it to the first drove of hogs that I meet. You'll be up in the Happy Hunting grounds then and you can't help yourself."

Once more the fiendish redskin tuned his branding iron to a sizzling white heat.

Great Bear felt the outlaw's cheek apparently with the intention of applying the iron there next. But for some reason, he evidently changed his mind. Carefully slitting the shoulders of Jesse's shirt, he burned a deep, livid impression on each, holding the iron for what, to the tortured bandit, seemed ages.

The great desperado was faint and dizzy, and tepee and savage danced before his eyes in a most outlandish fashion. Jesse wondered vaguely if all had gone suddenly crazy. But he had borne the ordeal without so much as a groan.

Great Bear scrutinized the outlaw's face keenly, and what he saw filled his soul with savage glee.

The Indian grunted a long-drawn grunt of satisfaction and laid aside his instrument of torture.

"Injun come again," he informed as Jesse opened his eyes once more. "Come tomorrow sun up. Take eyes out. Jesse Jame no fool Injun this time. No fool sojer. Byemby Jesse Jame Indian kill um. Injun get heap money for kill um Jesse Jame. Sojers no get um paleface. No get um money. Huh!"

"Jesse James will beat you yet," gasped the desperado weakly, mastering his faintness by a supreme effort. "He'll kill you!"

"Ugh!" breathed the savage, picking up his fire pot and departing from the wigwam without another word, nor once looking back at his miserable victim.

His fiendish torture had only just begun, and the anticipation in the mind of the savage was the keenest of all his inhuman emotions. He could afford to wait and he would yet see his victim writhe in agony and scream out as the awful pain was inflicted upon him.

Jesse emitted a long-drawn pent up sigh of relief, and a slight moan of agony escaped him as he closed his eyes wearily.

Great Bear had been gone but a moment when an Indian whom Jesse had never seen before, stalked in and made a careful examination of the tortured captive and his wounds.

From the savage's actions Jesse judged that he must be a medicine man. The outlaw grinned sardonically.

"Want to find out how much more I can stand, eh?" he jeered. "I'll take all you blood-thirsty devils can give me, don't you forget that."

His suspicions were confirmed when shortly after the medicine man had departed, three other Indians accompanied by Great Bear entered the wigwam, the chief giving them some terse directions in his own tongue that Jesse could not understand.

He did, however, understand the purport of it when the thongs that bound him to the stake, were severed by the strike of a keen-edged knife.

The desperado was roughly turned over on his face, and while two stalwart savages sat on him to hold him down, his arms were brought down to their normal position, then securely tied behind his back.

It was not much to be thankful for, but the change brought to Jesse the most heavenly sensation he ever had known.

His inclination was to draw a deep, long breath, but he resisted and shut his lips tight.

He would not give them that satisfaction.

The thongs that held his feet were now made doubly secure, so that in reality he was more helpless than before. But he was not inclined to complain, though the desperado never had been in such sore straits before.

His tormentors left him.

Jesse had been left lying on his face, the Indians not taking the trouble to turn him over. But after satisfying himself that he was alone, the outlaw cautiously rolled over on his back and rested for a few minutes. But his new position enabled him to see out through the opening, only the upper part of the flap having been put back in place by the savages when they left him.

He discovered that two stolid Indians had been left on guard. They were squatting on the ground in front of the wigwam. And now the desperado's mind began to work like a piece of well-oiled machinery, planning an escape. But just how he expected to accomplish this, was not clear to himself. Yet to his resourceful mind, no situation was impossible. Therefore the outlaw took cheer and set about the task in hand, regardless of the stinging pain from his burns, that he was now beginning to sense more keenly.

The desperado pricked up his ears at the sound of voices outside. He recognized the tones of Dew Drop, the Indian maiden. She was speaking loudly in her broken English, and Jesse understood instantly that she intended he should hear what she was saying.

Somewhere within her words there lay a message for him.

Dew Drop had launched into a perfect tirade of invective against the helpless desperado there in the wigwam, and with straining ears he listened for the words that would give him a clue to her motives. He observed too, that the shadows of night were falling. Between these two incidents the desperado believed there was a connection that augured well for his plans.

Once during her conversation with the Indians, he caught the words, "fire-water." Then Dew Drop's voice was heard no more, and he understood that she had gone away.

His heart sank. Perhaps he was wrong in his surmise, after all.

But Jesse's spirits revived a moment later when he heard her returning. He was at a loss at first to account for her movements. That something of interest to himself was occurring, Jesse was firmly convinced. But wriggle about as he would, he could not get a glimpse of the group outside.

However, the desperado's curiosity was soon rewarded.

"Firewater. That's it," he exclaimed. "By the great humping snakes. Sure as I am alive, the little savage is filling them up. I wonder what she's got up her sleeve now? If I only was able to get hold of my guns. I'd help her clean 'em out."

The sky was heavily overcast and black night had settled down over the scene, when finally labored breathing and guttural snores from without told the desperado that little Dew Drop's medicine had done its work well. Heap big Injun had gone to the happy hunting ground of dreamland.

But the bandit's thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a voice beside him.

"Jesse Jame," breathed the soft, purring voice of the Indian maid.

"Right you are, my little Dew Drop—"

"S-h-h-h!" cautioned the girl laying a soft, warm palm over his lips.

The sensation was peculiarly pleasant to the great bandit.

"Me cut um lariats. Um Jesse Jame go back by paleface brothers—"

"Where are they?" interrupted Jesse. "Do you know where they are now?"

"Dew Drop know. Dew Drop um know too bad chief kill um Jesse Jame morning."

"Hurry, little one," he begged, "let me get my guns. I must get out of here now."

He heard the girl utter a little startled exclamation as if she had been suddenly surprised by some one from without, then she sped away as silently as she had come, much to Jesse's surprise.

"Well, that gets me."

He could not understand her peculiar actions.

At least the desperado did not propose to remain quiescent when the way to freedom had been laid open to him. Dew Drop too, must have ere this, told the members of his band of his predicament, but by the time they were able to reach him, it might and probably would be too late.

Seconds were precious.

"I'd be a fool to stay here any longer," muttered Jesse. "The kid fluttered away like a frightened bird. Guess I'll go to."

Going, for the great desperado, however, was a far different matter. He could not walk nor could he crawl, and there seemed only one way left open to him, and this he adopted. He rolled.

It was not a dignified exit that he made from the wigwam, but it was better than being bound and guarded there with the prospect of further tortures in the morning.