d not gone far when he came upon a horse. It was
fastened, like his own, to a tree in a hollow.

"Ho! ho!" thought Ben, "you prefer to do yer dirty work on foot, Mr
Buck! Well, you're not far wrong in such a place."

Advancing now with great caution, the scout left the track and moved
through the woods more like a visible ghost than a man, for he was well
versed in all the arts and wiles of the Indian, and his moccasined feet
made no sound whatever. Climbing up the pass at some height above the
level of the road, so that he might be able to see all that took place
below, he at last lay down at full length, and drew himself in snake
fashion to the edge of the thicket that concealed him. Pushing aside
the bushes gently he looked down, and there, to his satisfaction, beheld
the man he was in search of, not thirty yards off.

Buck Tom was crouching behind a large mass of rock close to the track,
and so lost in the dark shadow of it that no ordinary man could have
seen him; but nothing could escape the keen and practised eye of Hunky
Ben. He could not indeed make out the highwayman's form, but he knew
that he was there and that was enough. Laying his rifle on a rock
before him in a handy position he silently watched the watcher.

During all this time the Englishman--whom the reader has doubtless
recognised as Charlie Brooke--was pushing on as fast as he could in the
hope of overtaking the man who could guide him to Traitor's Trap.

At last he came to the Blue Forks, and rode into the pass with the
confidence of one who suspects no evil. He drew rein, however, as he
advanced, and picked his way carefully along the encumbered path.

He had barely reached the middle of it, where a clear space permitted
the moonbeams to fall brightly on the ground, when a stern voice
suddenly broke the stillness of the night with the words--

"Hands up!"

Charlie Brooke seemed either to be ignorant of the ways of the country
and of the fact that disobedience to the command involved sudden death,
or he had grown unaccountably reckless, for instead of raising his arms
and submitting to be searched by the robber who covered him with a
revolver, he merely reined up and took off his hat, allowing the moon to
shine full on his countenance.

The effect on Buck Tom was singular. Standing with his back to the
moon, his expression could not be seen, but his arm dropped to his side
as if it had been paralysed, and the revolver fell to the