an interesting specimen of young, healthy manhood, and, even
though a youth in years, was one that could command respect, if not
admiration, wheresoever he might choose to go.

One remarkable item about his personal appearance, apt to strike the
beholder as being exceedingly strange and eccentric, was his
costume--buck-skin throughout, and that dyed to the brightest scarlet
hue.

On being asked the cause of his odd freak of dress, when he had joined
the train a few miles out from Cheyenne, the youth had laughingly
replied:

"Why, you see, it is to attract bufflers, if we should meet any, out
on the plains 'twixt this and the Hills."

He gave his name as Fearless Frank, and said he was aiming for the
Hills; that if the party in question would furnish him a place among
them, he would extend to them his assistance as a hunter, guide, or
whatever, until the destination was reached.

Seeing that he was well armed, and judging from external appearances
that he would prove a valuable accessory, the miners were nothing loth
in accepting his services.

Of the others grouped about the camp-fire only one is specially
noticeable, for, as Mark Twain remarks, "the average of gold-diggers
look alike." This person was a little, deformed old man; hump-backed,
bow-legged, and white-haired, with cross eyes, a large mouth, a big
head, set upon a slim, crane-like neck; blue eyes, and an immense
brown beard, that flowed downward half-way to the belt about his
waist, which contained a small arsenal of knives and revolvers. He
hobbled about with a heavy crutch constantly under his left arm, and
was certainly a pitiable sight to behold.

He too had joined the caravan after it had quitted Cheyenne, his
advent taking place about an hour subsequent to that of Fearless
Frank. His name he asserted was Nix--Geoffrey Walsingham Nix--and
where he came from, and what he sought in the Black Hills, was simply
a matter of conjecture among the miners, as he refused to talk on the
subject of his past, present or future.

The train was under the command of an irascible old plainsman who had
served out his apprenticeship in the Kansas border war, and whose name
was Charity Joe, which, considering his avaricious disposition, was
the wrong handle on the wrong man. Charity was the least of all old
Joe's redeeming characteristics; charity was the very thing he did not
recognize, yet some wag had facetiously branded him Charity Joe, and
the appellation h