Danger was not yet over, and our friend was determined to be ready for whatever might happen. He rode slowly away for fifty or a hundred yards, and stopped. Thinking he had better have his arms in as good condition as possible, he dismounted and thought he would load the discharged barrel of his pistol. On looking, this trusty weapon was missing. The holster was entirely torn away, and the pistol gone. He went back where he had waited for the Indians, and there lay the pistol on the ground. In his violent effort to put up the weapon and stop the horse while one arm was totally disabled, he had evidently thrust it in the holster so violently as to tear the leather away, and the weapon unperceived had fallen to the ground. Having loaded the empty barrel, he again mounted. The sun by this time was just setting. The Indians and the long dark ravine lay between him and the camp, and he took a circuitous route to meet the train. After going some four miles to the south-west, he came to the road. By the light of the moon he examined the track to see if his wagons with their broad tires had passed. There were no ruts but those made by the narrow-tired wagons of a Mormon train that was one or two days ahead of them. He then followed back, and mile after mile not a sound, not a person, not an animal, or a camp fire broke the vast solitude! But now he hears a gun directly ahead of him. Another minute and another gun; yes, 'tis his own party camped out for the night, firing minute guns as a signal, and waiting with anxiety and fear for their absent leader. He soon rode up, and--in the words of the narrator, as he told us the story--"how the boys took me in their arms and hugged me! They fairly screamed as I told them how I missed the buffalo but didn't miss the Indian. They took me on their shoulders and carried me three times round the camp. We saw no more of the Arrapahoes during the journey to Santa Fé." Such have been the adventures and perils of carrying the mails between the far outposts of civilization, on our wild frontier. CHAPTER XII. Cheating the Clergy--Duping a Witness--Money missing--A singular Postscript--The double Seal--Proofs of Fraud--The same Bank-Note--"Post-Boy" confronted--How the Game was played--Moving off. Our collection of "outside" delinquencies would be incomplete, were we to omit the following case, which was investigated by the author not long ago, and in which not a little ingenuity, of the baser sort, was displayed. It will serve as a specimen of a numerous class of cases, characterized by attempts to defraud some correspondent, and to fasten the blame of the fraud upon some one connected with the Post-Office. We could give many instances of a similar kind, did our limits permit.