Pond, seemingly dazed and bewildered, obeyed, and out by a rear door hastened the fair owner of the doomed house, with her maid, or man-servant, and Willie Pond, while the Texan, telling them he soon would follow, remained. Plainly now the shouts and vile threats of the drunken marauders came to the ears of the single listener. "I wish I had a barrel or two of gunpowder here," he muttered. "I'd make them sing another tune." Nearer and nearer they came, and now the Texan extinguished every light but one, which he shaded with his hat. Then he looked to the front door and windows and saw that they were all barred, except a single shutter which he left so he could open it. A minute later, and the tramp of a hundred hurrying feet came loudly on his ear. Then shouts: "Clean her out. Kill her and burn her crib!" In a minute the crowd brought up before the closed doors. "Open your doors, woman, or we'll shatter them!" cried Wild Bill. "Open, or down goes everything!" shouted the crowd. "Here, Bill; here is a shutter loose!" cried one. Wild Bill sprang toward it, and as he did so the shutter flew open; he saw a white face surrounded by auburn hair; he heard one gasping cry--"sister"--and he fell back in terror, crying out: "The ghost! the ghost!" But some one fired a shot, the light went out, and all was dark where the light had been. Bill recovered from his shock almost as soon as he felt it, and joined with the shout: "Down with the doors! Down with the doors." The crash that followed, told that the frail obstacles had given way, and Bill cried out: "In and clean the crib out. Ghost or no ghost, give us light, and clean the crib out!" Cheer after cheer told that the house was entered, and a minute later, torches made from splintered doors and shutters, blazed in a dozen hands as the ruffians ran to and for in search of plunder. "The ghost. Find the ghost, or the woman!" yelled Bill. CHAPTER X. A MYSTERY. The excited and ruffianly crowd dashed to and fro, overturning the furniture, tearing aside curtains, and looking for plunder, but unable to find anything of value, beyond the furniture, or to see a single living person under the roof. Not a dollar in money, not a piece of plate rewarded their search. "Fire the crib! fire the crib!" came from fifty throats, and almost as soon as spoken, the act was consummated. Wild Bill, angered to find no one on whom to vent his wrath, or shake his thirst for revenge, looked on the blaze as it rose with gloomy satisfaction, muttering that he only wished the witch of a woman was burning in it. The crowd increased as the flames rose higher and tighter, but no one tried to check them, and soon it was but a smoldering mass of ruins where the pretty cottage had stood.