not even a mail coach passing them.
Evidently the Indians were so troublesome as to interrupt all traffic
with Santa Fe and the more western forts. The slowness of their progress
was on account of the General, whose condition became worse in spite of
Fairbain's assiduous attentions. With no medicine the doctor could
do but little to relieve the sufferings of the older man, although he
declared that his illness was not a serious one, and would yield quickly
to proper medical treatment. They constructed a rude travois from limbs
of the cottonwood, and securely strapped him thereon, one man leading
the horse, while the doctor tramped behind.

Keith, fretting more and more over this necessary delay, and now
obsessed with the thought that Hawley must have rejoined his party
on the Arkansas and gone south with them, finally broke away from the
others and rode ahead, to gather together the necessary horses and
supplies in advance of their arrival. He could not drive from his mind
the remembrance of the gambler's attempted familiarity with Hope, when
he had her, as he then supposed, safe in his power once before in that
lonely cabin on the Salt Fork. Now, angry with baffled ambition, and
a victim of her trickery, there was no guessing to what extremes the
desperado might resort. The possibilities of such a situation made the
slightest delay in rescue an agony almost unbearable. Reaching Carson
City, and perfectly reckless as to his own safety there from arrest, the
plainsman lost no time in perfecting arrangements for pushing forward.
Horses and provisions were procured, and he very fortunately discovered
in town two cowboys belonging to the "Bar X" outfit, their work there
accomplished and about ready to return to, the ranch on the Canadian,
who gladly allied themselves with his party, looking forward to the
possibilities of a fight with keen anticipation. Keith was more than
ever delighted with adding these to his outfit, when, on the final
arrival of the others, the extra man brought from Sheridan announced
that he had had enough, and was going to remain there. No efforts made
revealed any knowledge of Hawley's presence in Carson City; either he
had not been there, or else his friends were very carefully concealing
the fact. The utter absence of any trace, however, led Keith to believe
that the gambler had gone elsewhere--probably to Fort Larned--for his
new outfit, and this belief left him more fully convinced than ever of