Before parting with Surgeon Frank Powell at the fort, Buffalo Bill had drawn a map of the country, marking the trail the surgeon-scout was to follow, and also just where he was to meet him, the place of rendezvous being the deserted camp where was the grave of Black-heart Bill. When Buffalo Bill approached the trail, at the scene of the Dead Line tragedies, he went most cautiously. But no one was there, and going up to the little cross, the scout bent over and thrust his hand into the spot where, as old Huckleberry, he had his "post-office" with Harding. He took out a slip of paper, and read it with clouded brow. It was as follows: "I slip away at night from Last Chance to leave this here for you. It was unfortunate that you should have had to go to the fort when you did, as on my run back I was held up here by the agents. "I had taken your advice, and pressed through the other end at night, thus escaping men lying in wait for me. "On my return I had a young lady passenger, a Miss Celeste Seldon, coming out here to find her father, a miner, and a young man whom she had sent in search of him. It was the young man I told you of who had been wounded and had never regained his reason. "I had a large sum of money, which was taken, and Miss Seldon was carried off as a captive, to be held for ransom. "The miners have subscribed the ransom money, and she is to be released. I will let you know particulars more fully as soon as I get the opportunity, endeavoring to have a letter here for you when I come to make the exchange, paying the ransom and receiving the lady from the outlaws. "Doctor Dick will come with me; but the outlaws threaten to kill Miss Seldon if others come, or if any one else leaves Last Chance to pursue them, and that chief will keep his word. HARDING." Then there followed a postscript, which read: "The young messenger, Bernard Brandon, has most mysteriously disappeared, and no search can find him. "H." Buffalo Bill read this letter over twice, and said in a musing way: "Those outlaws are becoming bold, indeed, when they deliberately rob a young girl and make her their prisoner. The man Brandon was her messenger, sent in search of her father, and his mysterious disappearance, _to me_, means that he has been captured by the road-agents. "Now, I dare not halt the coach on the way to receive the girl, if the road-agents give her up; but I will be on the watch, see it go by, and be as near this spot when the ransom is paid as I dare be, for from here I may be able to track those devils to their lair." So saying, the scout set out upon his return for his basin camp. CHAPTER XXXVI. THE SCOUT ON THE WATCH.