A man who, as it appeared later, had not been invited came in. He was a small, lithe man, with a smooth face, and keen, light-blue eyes; Buffalo Bill had observed him almost as soon as he was in the room, and wondered who he was. His discovery, close by the door, which was open behind him, brought quick work on the part of the hitherto smiling bridegroom. Juniper Joe’s revolvers bounced out of their hiding places beneath his coat tails, and were fired as soon as he could swing them up; the two reports, one from each revolver, crashing together. The lithe little man tumbled backward against the door, which his fall half closed. As he did so, he sent a shot which smashed the one light--a huge kerosene lamp suspended from the ceiling--thus plunging the room into darkness. There was wild confusion following this shooting. Men tumbled headlong out of the place, by the doors and windows; those who remained flung themselves flat on the floor, to escape possible bullets. The loud voice of Juniper Joe was heard, commanding that another lamp should be brought. “I guess I got him,” he said. But when the lamp was brought, from another room, the little man was not found, dead or wounded, by the door. Juniper Joe’s bullets had gone through the wood of the door; but neither on the door, nor the floor by it, was there a stain of blood. There were naturally vociferous howls for an explanation, by the men who had dropped for safety; this thing of a man beginning pistol work like that seemed to call for an apology. Juniper Joe gave it, in a few crisp and characteristic words. “That feller, gents,” he said, “was Tim Benson, road agent and gin’ral outlaw, what I’m shore has been doin’ the hold-up work recently on these hyer trails. I seen him onct, at Holbrook, when he made a gitaway, after robbin’ the Holbrook stage. He got five thousand dollars o’ my good money at that time, and I swore I’d kill him if ever I got a chanct. I thought I had the chanct, jes’ now; but dropped it, somehow. I reckon I didn’t hit him, fer he shot out the light, and seems to have hit the safe places outside somewhar.” Not many of the guests tarried for the “refreshments” after that. Some went to look for Tim Benson; others, scared, thought it best to take themselves off. In ten minutes after the shooting, Juniper Joe’s cabin was nearly emptied. CHAPTER II. “JACKSON DANE, DETECTIVE.” At the Eagle House, an hour afterward, the man shot at by Juniper Joe appeared before the door of Buffalo Bill’s room, and rapped. Nomad, who was in the room with the scout and the baron, being nearest the door, drew it open. The little man came in, glancing narrowly around; a quiet man, apparently mild-mannered. There was nothing remarkable in his looks; in a crowd he would have been passed without notice. Yet to the keen eyes of Buffalo Bill the man’s very quietness of manner spoke of reserve force and repression.