The sun had just crossed the meridian, on the day set for the meeting
of Duval Dungarvon and Black Bear at the Lone Pine, when Solomon
Strange, in Black Bear’s disguise, emerged from the forest on the south
side of the glade, and stopped beneath the Lone Pine.
He had not been there more than an hour when Duval Dungarvon emerged
from the forest on the north side of the glade and advanced toward him.
“Here we are ag’in,” exclaimed Solomon Strange, quite hoarsely.
“Yes,” replied the robber-captain, looking at him in a way that made
Strange flinch with uneasiness; “but what’s the matter, Brandon, you
talk so hoarse?”
“Matter enuff,” returned the false Black Bear. “I catched a devil of a
cold last night at the Devil’s Tarn. But come, let’s to business.”
“Now, if I tell you, Brandon, you must never breathe it to a living
soul, for it is in strict violation of our laws to do so.”
“You needn’t be afraid of me tellin’, Dungarvon. Go on with your story.”
The robber-captain began, and in a few moments he had related the whole
of their proceedings in initiating a man into their band of Mountain
Men, or robbers, and concluded by saying:
“Suppose you go in to-night?”
“Can jist as well as not,” replied Strange, “though there is one thing
I had forgotten to mention.”
“Well, let’s have it.”
“I shall insist on keeping my bear-skin on at the ranch.”
“Of course! We wouldn’t know that the great _Black Bear_ was in our
midst unless you wore it,” returned Dungarvon.
“Then I am ready to go with you,” said the false chief.
The two arose and at once set off toward the robber’s ranch.
As they walked along, conversing on different topics, Strange finally
said:
“You have never told me, Dungarvon, why it is that you hate this man
Sanford so bitterly.”
“No. I tell _very_ few, because I don’t want everybody to know, for
then it would be no secret, and that’s the beauty of it.”
“Yes; but tell it, tell it to me, Dungarvon,” said Strange.
“Well, to make a short story out of a long one, Sanford and I both
loved the same woman, a Creole of New Orleans. She would have married
me, but Sanford, curse him! told her I was the son of an Italian
brigand, and so won her. In the course of time they had two children,
Florence and Silvia. Wayland Sanford went to California during the
gold-fever, and I followed, waiting for a chance to take his life.
After a time the chance came. Sanford quarreled with a miner, and
publicly threatened his life. That night the miner was killed. Of
course _I_ did it, but I was detected in the act by one of Sanford’s
friends. I threw the man down the shaft, and left him there. Sanford
was arrested for the crime, but escaped, and flew, no one knew where. I
followed, but failed to find my man.
“I left California. And seeing that money could be made, organized the
band I now command, and we have been operating the route ever since.
“Some time after I began, a regiment of troops came into the region,
and fearing they were after me, I went, in disguise, to the camp, and
sought an interview with the colonel. You can imagine my surprise when
I found myself face to face with Wayland Sanford, colonel commanding
the regiment!
“He knew me, and fearful that I would blow on him, asked the price of
my silence.
“I knew Inez was dead, so I demanded the daughter, Florence, for
my wife. He stormed and swore; offered ten thousand dollars, but I
laughed at him, and to end the matter, he finally gave in and wrote
to his daughter that he had made an engagement for her hand with a
_particular_ friend. The girl declined the honor, and answered that she
was engaged to an officer in his regiment, one Captain Warren Walraven.
“I told Sanford I could fix _him_, and so I sat down and wrote a
letter, forged the handwriting, from Walraven to Blufe Brandon, chief
of the Cheyennes, in which he offered to sell the command into his
power. This I dropped where one of Sanford’s scouts found it and gave
it to the colonel.
“Walraven was court-martialed and dismissed the service. The next day
he, with his nigger servant, Ebony Jim, started for Laramie, where
Florence was. I captured him on his way--the nigger escaped--and taking
him to Devil’s Tarn, I put him in a canoe and started him adrift over
the falls. That ended _him_.
“Sanford wrote to his daughter, telling her all about Walraven, how
he was cashiered and killed by the Indians, but she had suddenly
disappeared from the fort, and was seen no more. Her skeleton, however,
was found in an old well near the fort, a year or so afterward. About a
year after that I entrapped a traveler, who proved to be the very man,
Barker, whom I had thrown down the shaft!”
“And you hold him a prisoner yet?” asked Black Bear.
“You bet, though he can’t last a week longer. A few weeks since I heard
Sanford was at Omaha, and you know the rest. But here we are at the
ranch.”
They stood at the mouth of the cavern wherein Willis and Ralph had
been captured. A sentinel was posted at the entrance, who demanded the
password from Dungarvon before he was allowed to pass with the supposed
Black Bear, it being so dark by this time that the sentinel could not
distinguish the features of the captain.
Passing along the narrow cavern a short way, the captain stopped and
placed his hand in a small niche in the rocky wall. Immediately the
wall seemed to part with a heavy, grating noise.
“This way, Brandon,” said the robber chief, and the two stepped through
the aperture in the wall, into a small, but brilliantly-lighted
chamber. Then the captain touched a small, projecting rock on the wall,
when the two walls rolled together again, and there was no sign of the
aperture through which they had passed.
“This,” said Dungarvon, turning to his companion, “is my private
apartment, and you may now consider yourself, Black Bear, in the Lodge
of Mountain Men, from which you will never go alive until you have been
initiated into the brotherhood.”