“I don’t keer if I do,” he said, when the scout asked him to take a chair. He helped himself to the one which the little man had occupied so short a while before. “You-all was at the jubilee to-night,” he said, running his eyes over them; “and so know what happened ter break up the gin’ral hilarity o’ that festive occasion. Because o’ which I’m hyer, when I ought ter be thar with my blushin’ bride this minute. I believe that the town gin’rally thinks that the only mistake I made was in not gittin’ the coyote I shot at; which you heerd me say was Tim Benson, the road agent.” “Er, waugh! We heerd yer!” Nomad told him. “You know somethin’ about Benson?” “Not so much but thet our cur’osity is ixcited ter hear more.” Juniper Joe turned to Buffalo Bill. “I reckon you’re hyer trailin’ somebody. It’s considered lately that you aire, when you pike into a town like this.” “I might be traveling for my health, you know,” Buffalo Bill observed, with a smile. “When already yer has got ther health o’ a grizzly? Nobody’d think it. No; you come hyer fer somebody; and I’ve been figgerin’ that it must be you’re lookin’ for Benson, because he’s known to have been in this section recent, doin’ hold-up work, as I said thar at my house.” “Have you known him well?” “I never seen him clost but onct; but then I had so good a look at him that I spotted him to-night as soon’s he poked his nose in at the door. Too bad that when I pulled on him I didn’t git him! Of course, he’s still in the town; and I reckon if chanct comes his way, he’ll make the new Mrs. Joe ag’in a widder. But I’m heeled fer him!” He dropped a hand to the bulging revolvers. “He’ll haf to pot me from the dark, if he gits me!” he boasted. “But that ain’t what I come over hyer to elucidate, after leavin’ my bride of an hour er so to home all alone, which ain’t a proper thing fer any man to do; and I wouldn’t do it but for the circumstances. “You-all aire knowin’ to the fact,” he went on, “that lately I’ve been hittin’ it big in my mine. Sense the Wells Fargo sent out its last shipment, I’ve pulled out o’ that mine gold dust and nuggets to the amount of ten thousand dollars’ worth. To-morrow the Wells Fargo is goin’ to ship it out fer me, with stuff from a good many other mines round hyer; I reckon thar’ll be fifty thousand dollars go out in the express company’s cash boxes to-morrow.” Buffalo Bill, having been so short a time in the place, did not know this, and was interested. “So-o?” said the baron. “Dot iss more gold as I haf effer seen in one bunches.” “Et’s er heap,” Nomad admitted. “I reckoned,” went on Juniper Joe, “that you-all would be takin’ a hand in gyardin’ that stage load of wealth when she pulls out. So I’ve come to give ye a pinter. Jest in the cañon tother side o’ Stag Mountain is whar you’re likely to have trouble; in my opinion, if the agents hits you, it will be right thar. I say this so’s you can be ready for ’em.”