“Thunder and guns!” fell from his lips, as he gazed first at Tom and then at the unconscious waif. “Is it possible that I’ve been tracking the wrong person the best years of my life? Tom, you stare but don’t speak. Can’t you say a word, and confirm--no! dispel my terrible suspicions?” Tom Terror shook his head. “So,” he said, looking up into Rosebud Dan’s startled countenance, “so the baby was a girl?” Then, as if determined to have the rest and attention that his wound demanded, despite the new and exciting phase the adventure was assuming, he staggered toward the cot. “I reckon she’ll hardly get to be the gold-bug’s wife now,” he muttered, as he fell upon the skin and fixed his eyes on the Wolf. “He’d give an arm ef that mole warn’t on her face. We used to think that it war on somebody else’s.” The next moment he turned away, and shutting his teeth hard, tried to kill the groan of agony that came up from his shattered breast. CHAPTER VI. Again we must convey the reader to the wild metropolis of the Black Hills. In the bar-room which we have once visited the Vigilantes of Custer were again congregated. Moravy had a story to tell which sent a chill of horror to the hearts of the iron hangmen who surrounded him, and in rough but eloquent language he told the story of Rosebud Dan’s singular capture and the death of the Creole Antenat. At the mention of the Wolf’s cognomen an attentive listener on the outer rim of the spell-bound circle started as if struck in the side by a dirk. This was Red Crest. What! the man whom he had helped to swing over a beam still alive, and capable of taking human life with the revolver? The Indian was superstitious; he could not believe all of Moravy’s narrative. A spirit, not a living being, had entered the cave and taken Antenat’s life. But, thought the Sioux a moment later, the guards lassoed something tangible; they dragged it into the cavern, and it was this person who shot and killed. Red Crest, if questioned about the matter at that time, would have told the story of Deadly Dan’s hanging. “What do you say, Indian?” But Red Crest kept his lips sealed. For what purpose did these lawless men want to know Judge Lynch Jr.’s whereabouts? Time and again they had sworn vengeance against him; they had even hunted him among the shadows of Cut-throat. “Boys, thar’s grit in Red Crest,” said the Vigilante, captain as he sent a smile among his impatient men. “He hesn’t got a spark of betrayal in him.” The Indian, who had not removed his eyes from Maverick Joe for a second, made a sign for him to proceed.