One by one the people departed, the train pulled out of camp, the last wagon disappeared over a rise in the prairie, and the voices of the cattle drivers grew fainter and fainter in the distance. Still the old man stood, his hands resting on the spade, which had been left with him. His dead daughter lay in the shallow grave, enveloped in the blanket shroud, and her face veiled as she had worn it in life. A short distance away stood his horse, and no sound broke the silence after the shouts of the cattle drivers had died away. At length he went to work and shoveled the earth into the grave with a strength and quickness one would not have looked for in a man of his age. Casting the spade aside, he mounted his horse and rode down the stream instead of following the trail of the train. His thoughts seemed far away, his head was bent, and he seemed unmindful in his grief which way his horse was taking him, or that he had been warned of Indians lurking in the vicinity. Hardly had he gone from sight before a horseman appeared through the timber from the opposite side. At a glance he was recognized as Buffalo Bill, mounted upon his faithful horse Midnight. As though with a set object in view, he dismounted, and his eye falling upon the spade, he began to throw out the loose earth from the newly made grave. Diligently he worked, using great care as he dug nearer and nearer to the body, and so intent upon his work as to be oblivious to all else. At length the spade touched the blanket, and his hands were then used to scrape off the dirt until the veil was visible. Tenderly he drew it aside and gazed upon the face of the dead. The eyes were closed, the hair was blond, not black, but it was a face he knew well. From his lips broke the cry: “It is Panther Kate.” “Yes, it is Panther Kate, and I am Kent King, the Gambler Guide!” Buffalo Bill started, and glanced up, to realize that he was trapped. His belt of arms lay some feet distant, and he gazed into the face of Parson Bristow, but the spectacles, shoved up on the forehead, displayed the vicious eyes of Kent King. CHAPTER XIV. CLOSE QUARTERS. “It looks as though I was going to win my bet, Cody,” said Kent King, with a sneer. “You have got the stakes, anyhow, by murdering this poor girl, and, of course, I need expect no mercy,” was the cool reply. “Murdered Kate! What do you mean?” and the man’s face turned white. “I had a suspicion that you were not what you represented yourself, and when Mrs. Dooley, who had dressed poor Kate for the grave, told me that her hair had been dyed yellow, I determined to ferret out the mystery, and I have done so.” “You have run yourself into a death trap, and whether I killed Kate or not, you will never be called as a witness in the case.” “I’m not dead yet, old man.” “No, but you will be within the minute; for I intend to kill you,” was the deliberate reply.