He stepped forward, almost as if pushed by the yelping Mexicans who crowded his heels; and the marshal’s men surrounding him, he was led away into the town, and cast into the town jail. “Hard luck!” he said, when the marshal’s men were gone. He looked disconsolately about his cheerless quarters—a narrow room, dingy and disreputable, with one high, barred window, and a heavy, barred door. It held nothing but a broken-legged stool and a shaky wooden cot on which was a tattered government blanket and a makeshift of a pillow. “I dunno as it’s any use,” he muttered when he finished his survey. “I intended to try to be a decent man, and here I am. When a man’s down, even Fate kicks him. I didn’t even know there was such a creature in the world as that Mexican woman, but one of my bullets goes huntin’ for her, and finds her; and it lands me here. And if she dies——” He shrugged his shoulders and dropped to a seat on the cot. “It come about, of course, all of it, because that other woman died; that got me to thinking again, and then I got to drinkin’ to keep from thinkin’. I’m all sorts of a fool, on general principles, and when I go to loading up with liquor I’m even a few more.” Restlessly he got up from the cot, and, putting the broken stool against the wall, he mounted it, and looked out from the barred window. At first his gaze took in the town, and particularly that portion which held the Mexican huts. He could even see the little mesquite tree where he had stuck up the queen of hearts and fired at it. Following the road which ran there, he looked off toward the ragged hills and the mountains looming beyond them, his thoughts bitter. As he did so, he became aware that horsemen were approaching the town along that road. He stood on the stool staring at them until they came up to the Mexican huts and on into the street which led to the center of the town. The horsemen broke into a canter. “Injuns,” he said, “and three white men.” He strained his eyes to make them out. Suddenly a low whoop broke from his lips. “Buffalo Bill, or I’m a sand hog!” he exclaimed, striking a palm against the bars of the window. He rubbed his eyes, and looked again. “And the two white men with him are Wild Bill and that old trapper they call Nick Nomad. Whoop! I reckon the Injuns aire some o’ Buffalo Bill’s scouts.” A change passed over his face. “But mebbe they won’t help me. When Fate kicks a man she kicks him hard. Yet there was a time when Buffalo Bill and me were pards. But that’s long ago, long ago.” CHAPTER XVII. THE STORY OF QUICKSILVER JOHN. Ben Woods, the marshal of the town of Skyline, met Buffalo Bill and his pards and followers in front of the principal hotel of the town.