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Updated: June 23, 2025
Certain it is, Sam Rice had driven six horses, on a ticklish mountain road, for four years, without missing a trip; and had more than once encountered the "road-agents," without ever yet delivering them an express box; had had old and young ladies, plain and beautiful ones, to sit beside him, hundreds of times: yet this was the first time he had consulted the way-bill, on his own account, to find a lady's name.
As we have been on so many scouting-expeditions together, and Doctor Powell is a regiment in himself, I wanted him to go back with me and unearth these road-agents, following their trail to the very end." "You could have no one better. What do you say, Powell?" "How could I refuse, major, after Bill's most flattering remarks about what I can do, and which prove he has Irish blood in his veins."
How came they here, when the hand of Deadwood Dick guarded the only accessible entrance there was to the valley? The answer was: they came secretly through the pass on the night preceding the arrival of the road-agents, and had been lying in close concealment ever since.
He, however, would not believe that road-agents had kidnaped the crazed man, but said that he might have sprung from the cliff and taken his own life, have fallen over a precipice, or been devoured by the fierce mountain-wolves that hung in packs about the camps. It was with a sinking heart that Celeste Seldon saw Harding drive away upon the stage, leaving her in the power of the road-agents.
"I did not form their acquaintance by name, but perhaps a search of the bodies may reveal." "You killed them?" "Two." "Where are the bodies?" "I brought them along in the coach." "I thought they were passengers who had been killed?" "They were." "How do you mean?" "They left W booked as passengers, but reached Last Chance as dead-head road-agents." "Now I begin to understand.
The belief of Landlord Larry and Harding was that Bernard Brandon had been captured, for some reason, by road-agents, and this convinced them that there were spies of the outlaws then dwelling in their midst; but what the motive for kidnaping the man was, they could only conjecture, believing it to be ransom that they thought the miners would pay, and, if they did not, that Celeste Seldon would.
Then Landlord Larry made known that the mysterious disappearance, at the time of Miss Seldon's capture by the road-agents, was a coincidence so strange that it needed explanation.
He took with him another packhorse, well laden with bedding and supplies, for the weather was growing steadily colder and winter would soon be upon the land. He knew that little snow generally fell as far down as the Last Chance trail, but it would be well to be prepared for any emergency, and as the coaches ran through the winter, the road-agents would by no means take a rest.
"What will you do, Jim?" she asked, mockingly. "I'll shake this camp. I'll rustle for the border. I'll get in with Kells and Gulden... You'll hear of me, Joan Randle!" These were names of strange, unknown, and wild men of a growing and terrible legion on the border. Out there, somewhere, lived desperados, robbers, road-agents, murderers.
The scout was recognized by the miners and warmly greeted, and, as he dismounted at the hotel and was welcomed by Landlord Larry and Harding, who had returned, Doctor Dick came forward and said: "Delighted to see you, Mr. Cody, again in Last Chance." "Yes, Doctor Dick, I am here to find Richard Mayhew, alias Doctor Dick, and, more still, the masked chief of the road-agents hold! you are covered!"
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