But the gentlemen did not seem to be so inclined, or, if they did, the words of Bonnie Belle checked them, for she said sternly: “No, there will be no trouble here, for the man who raises a weapon against you I will kill. As for you, Pistols, if you ever enter my hotel or this saloon again, I will see that you do not do so a second time. Shuffles, do you hear what I say about this man?” A silence followed, and, as no answer came, Bonnie Belle called again: “Shuffles!” “If you are calling your man left in charge here, Bonnie Belle, he is dead,” said Buffalo Bill, as no one else seemed to care to speak. “Shuffles dead?” she repeated, with a start. “Yes.” “When did he die?” “To-night.” “Ha! he was killed?” “Ask one of your men here to tell you about it, Bonnie Belle.” She called a bartender and was told the story. She listened in silence, making no comment, and then turned to Scott Kindon and asked: “Captain, is this not a case of murder?” “It looks so, Bonnie Belle.” “This man Pistols has been carrying too high a hand for the safety and comfort of the good citizens in Yellow Dust Valley, and it appears to me that he needs disciplining by the Vigilantes.” “Say the word, Bonnie Belle, and he travels the trail to Hangman’s Gulch,” the Vigilante captain said very decidedly. Bonnie Belle was lost for a moment in thought, while Pistols gazed at her with a look of pleading and despair commingled. At last she spoke: “No, Captain Kindon, I will not say the word, for I wish no man’s life upon my conscience, where it can be avoided. The mines will be the better for the taking off of those men, Tom and Jerry, and it would make it more respectable to rid us of this man Pistols. He has no mine or claim here, carries his fortune with him, I believe, so give him until sunrise to get out of the camps, while, that he may not be lonesome, let this man who was leading the attack upon Surgeon Powell and Buffalo Bill go with him. “Shall it be so, comrades?” and Bonnie Belle glanced over the crowd which answered with a yell that nearly raised the roof. CHAPTER XV. A MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW. Pistols was too happy to escape with his life to grumble at anything that might be put upon him, and he was only too anxious to get away from the saloon and start upon his exile, feeling that there was safety only in placing many miles between himself and Yellow Dust Valley. Dave Dunn, the other alleged witness against Buffalo Bill, had been led into making the charge by his comrade Pistols, and, seeing how matters were going, had slipped out of Devil’s Den and hastened to his cabin to prepare for an immediate farewell to Pocket City.