The wedding festivities were still in progress when Buffalo Bill received a letter, by “pony express,” from Colonel Montrose, the commander of Fort Cimarron, directing him to come to that station in order to reconnoiter the district and keep an eye upon the Cheyenne Indians who had threatened to break from their reservation. “I’m sorry you must go, Cody,” said Latimer, when the message was made known to him. “I had hoped that you might be able to linger here a while, and enjoy a more welcome hospitality than was shown you when you first came here.” Thanking him for the offer, and reluctantly taking leave of his friends, the great scout set forth on the journey, mounted on his favorite horse which had been sent to him from Eldorado. And while he rode away from these nuptial celebrations, another romance, in which he was destined to play a part, was even now being enacted on the wide, wide-swept plains. In the doorway of a lonely sod house May Arlington, the daughter of a government message bearer, stood shading her eyes from the glare of the hot sun, and looking out across the level grassland. Another horseman, not Buffalo Bill, was riding swiftly over the open country before her and coming in her direction. She knew he was not her father, who was absent far to the southward. But she hoped he was her lover, big bluff Ben Stevens, the handsomest and most athletic youth in the region of the country known as No Man’s Land, lying along the border of the upper Panhandle of Texas. “It isn’t Ben,” she said, “but one of the soldiers from Fort Cimarron. I hope there isn’t any trouble with the Indians.” A shade of anxiety passed over her face. It had been a long time since there had been any Indian trouble in that section of the Southwest. But people who live near Indians are never sure when the red men will decide to take to the warpath; and lately there had been murmurings and mutterings among the Cheyennes, who were herded on their reservation not more than a day’s ride away. May’s father had heard of it, and had spoken of it, but he did not believe the Cheyennes would dare make trouble, when there were soldiers no farther than Fort Cimarron. The horseman, riding rapidly, drew near, with a quick clatter of hoofs. He swung by the house, lifting his cap as he did so, and then he flung out from him something that flashed white in the sun. It fell at her feet as he dashed on, and she saw that it was a letter. “From Ben!” she said. But when she tore the letter open hastily she saw it was not from her lover. It contained but a few words, which were not intelligible to her; and then she saw that there was something else in the envelope--something round and hard, wrapped in tissue paper. When she pulled the tissue paper apart, there lay sparkling in her brown palm a nugget of gold, with strange hieroglyphic markings on it.