If he had looked into the little room of the stable-home, still dimly lighted by the dusty lantern, he would have seen an inanimate form stretched upon the rumpled cot. “Hyar’s the cap’n,” cried a score of voices, and Maverick Joe, roused by the sounds, found himself in the midst of his Vigilantes. The men had been waiting for their leader, and in less than five minutes he placed himself at their head, mounted on his trusted horse Bonanza. “I’m afraid Old Jack’s dead,” said the Vigilante captain. “Boys, we’ve got to avenge him. Tom Terror is back; he gave Jack his last dose. Think of this boys.” He got the desired response, oaths of vengeance and looks of eternal hatred. The band that galloped toward Cut-throat knew every pebble that lay in the road. The Vigilantes went cautiously into the gulch; they glided among its shadows; they waited for their prey at different places with their fingers on their trigger. “Nothing hyar,” said Maverick Joe, disappointedly, after an hour’s waiting at a certain point. “The game has slipped us for to-night. We must come ag’in. Lilly, Antenat and Moravy, you will remain in Cut-throat. We will go back and bury Old Jack.” It was with reluctance that the Vigilantes fell in line behind their leader. They must, perforce, give up the hunt for that night. “Won’t we give Jack a grand plantin’?” Maverick Joe looked at the handsome young Vigilante who rode at his side. “Ay, we’ll plant him well, Harry. I wish we could please ’im by burying Tom’s throat and the big bonanza in the same grave.” “That bonanza business must have been imagination,” answered the young man. “Maybe so,” said Joe, half-musingly. “But I’ve been thinking since I left Jack. Did you ever hear of that rumor?” “About the girl, cap’n?” “Yes. People don’t talk about it much now. Jack used to talk about it. I recollect one night that he sat up till three--it was in his stable--talking about the woman that he eloped with away down among the States. Old Jack used to be a good-looking young man, and not very long ago either.” “Oh, I never heard about the elopement,” exclaimed the young Vigilante quickly. “What has that to do with the lost girl?”