“Just keep your seat and steady your horse,” Buffalo Bill shot at him. “We won’t trouble _you_. The man we are after is in the stage.” “Wow!” said Elmore. “Is that so? What’s _he_ been up to?” “If we aren’t mistaken, you’re pulling Benson along in your old hearse to-day,” the scout told him. Elmore came near falling out of his seat. “Bub-Benson! But--say, it cain’t be. Bub-Benson ain’t----” Buffalo Bill advanced on the stage, a revolver in each hand, paying no further heed to the stage driver. “We think you’re in there, Benson!” he called out. “So you might as well step right out and surrender. We know you’re a big little man, and a mighty good pistol shot; but there are four of us here, and we can do some shooting, too. So, even if you downed one or two of us you couldn’t get away. And it would go mighty hard with you. Better come right out like a little man and surrender.” But there was no reply to this. “Hold your revolvers on the stage doors,” the scout commanded. “If Benson jumps out and tries to get away, down him. He has given us enough trouble.” He stepped to the door of the stage on his side, and boldly drew it open with his left hand, holding a revolver in his right. “You might as well come out, Benson. There is a woman in there. Miss Vera Bright; but, of course, she knows that we mean no harm to her. We’re after Tim Benson.” There was a rustling sound; then a woman--or what they took, in the rather dim light, to be a woman--came out of the stage, carrying a hand bag. “You--you sc-scared me so!” “No harm will be done you, Miss Bright,” said the scout. “But there is a man in here; and we want him.” The scout put his head in at the stage door, and saw a form lying back amid the cushions. “Hello!” he said. “What is this!” The next moment he had leaped into the stage, after calling on his friends to keep a close watch. A woman lay unconscious against the cushions of the coach, the scout saw at once. He stooped over her, the light not so good that he could see her face clearly; but a feeling that something was wrong came to him. “Stop that woman outside!” he yelled. He turned to get out of the stage. At the same instant Nomad yelled something. “Stop her!” Buffalo Bill shouted. Nomad began to run after the supposed woman. “She is hikin’, Cody,” he announced. “Then shoot her! For that woman must be Tim Benson!” The trapper’s revolver roared the next moment. “Waugh!” he howled. “She’s gittin’ away, Buffler!” The scout flung himself out of the stage. All he saw at that first look was the skirts of the supposed man, as they whipped out of sight behind a rock, and Nomad lunging in that direction. “I’m afraid we’re tricked,” said the scout to Wild Bill and the baron. “But you stay right here; some woman is in the stage, or else Benson. We will know directly.” Then he sprinted after Nomad.