The scout, though anxious now to go on as fast as possible, did not give over the search of this camping spot until he was sure there was nothing unfound that could aid him. “Mebbe he’s one o’ the men I’m lookin’ fur,” said Pizen Jane, as she mounted to go on. “I don’t reckon he is, though; ’twould be too much good luck. Luck ain’t been rollin’ my way much lately.” She cackled in her shrill fashion, as if she thought she had said something funny. No single trail was observed to leave the main trail, as they went on. By and by the scout became convinced that Nick Nomad was a prisoner of a gang of outlaws, though he had no solid proof on which to build this belief. If it had not been for the fact that the letter had been trampled into the ground, showing by that that the horses had been there after it was dropped, he might have thought Nomad had struck the outlaws’ trail, and was following them, for he knew that Nick Nomad was in that country for the sole purpose of running down the road agents and desperadoes that infested it--the same mission that had brought him there. Buffalo Bill talked of his beliefs and theories with Pizen Jane, for he discovered that she possessed a good fund of hard, common sense, and her judgments were at times valuable. She agreed with him, when he had pointed out the hoofs, that Nick Nomad had not been following the big trail; and, if that were so, then that he had either been in advance of the outlaws or he was with them. If with them, nothing was surer than that old Nomad was a prisoner. “We’ll follow this trail until we know the truth,” said the scout. “Buffler,” she cackled, “I’m with ye! Ye may think that is a joke, but ’tain’t; fer I mean that I’m with ye in spirit, as well as otherwise. And mebbe you’ll allow bimeby that Pizen Jane is a good deal better than she looks, and has got more sense than any man would guess, if he jedged by the way her tongue clacks.” CHAPTER V. THE CAPTURE. Nick Nomad, the old trapper and mountainman, had received word from his famous pard, Buffalo Bill, informing him that the latter intended to go into the desert country that lay near the base of the Sepulcher Mountains, for the purpose, if possible, of breaking up the road-agent organization known to exist there. The mountains of the gruesome name deserved the title of Sepulcher. They were barren and forbidding, and held so little water on their desert side that it was as much as a man’s life was worth to get lost in them there, for he was pretty certain to die of thirst. Yet the Sepulcher Mountains held gold in paying quantities, and that lure was drawing men from all quarters of the country.