ur years were soon explained.

The Singer-Lady lifted her head at last to the sound of galloping
horses. Dick was looking calmly in their direction. Terror seized her.

"What is that?"

"You must return to the house. They must not see you here."

She clung to him with the wail of a breaking heart.

"It is the sheriff and his deputies. This morning George and I were
on the Folsom stage. We were stopped by a deputy sheriff and sternly
requested to alight. We entered into conversation with the gentleman of
the law--whom I had met several times before" (with a grim smile), "and
finally George, with due deference to authority, demanded to be shown
the warrant for our arrest.

"Whilst the simple creature was fumbling for it, we opened fire and,
springing from the top of the stage, escaped across Harmon Hill. The
vain fellow carried only a derringer, and how was one little bullet to
stop our race for liberty."

"Yet you returned here! That was madness."

"I heard of you and the longing to see you once more overcame every
other feeling."

"Do not fear, I knew that they would come. What was that to pay for the
chance of seeing you again. They can but put me in Auburn jail, and no
locks can hold me except the shining ones on this dear head. No prison
can keep me till I am laid in that last one beneath the grass, and there
I will wait for you dear love. I shall not hear the celestian singing
till your sweet voice has joined the angel choir, and your two
hands--see, I still carry the little mitts--shall open the door for me
to Paradise, as they have held all of heaven for me on earth.

"It may be in that last court, the Great judge of all will look into my
heart which strove to be honorable and will dismiss the accusations of
mere, mortal man."

* * * * *

As usual, Dick escaped the jail and with George Taylor attempted to
get away, but Fate had dealt him her last blow and on the scroll of his
precarious and bitter life had written finis. A mile above Auburn they
were overtaken by Assessor George W. Martin and Deputy Sheriffs
Crutcher and Johnston. In the terrible encounter which ensued Martin was
instantly killed and Dick mortally wounded.

They rode more than a mile at a furious pace, from the scene of his last
fight, before Dick lay down to die. George put him on his great riding
cloak and spread a saddle blanket over him. Then when he read a fresh
command in the highwayman's dark eyes he faltered.

"Dick, old