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“Them Hills ain’t fur now,” vouchsafed Billy, as a cold breeze from the west lifted the limp brim of his hat, and a film of cloud drew with uncanny and silent rapidity across the stars.

The tenderfoot had turned again to look at the messenger, who interested him exceedingly, when the stage came to a stop so violent as almost to throw him from his seat. He recovered his balance with difficulty. Billy, his foot braced against the brake, was engaged in leisurely winding the reins around it.

“Hands up, I say!” cried a sharp voice from the darkness ahead.

“Meanin’ you,” observed Billy to the tenderfoot, at the same time thrusting his own over his head and settling down comfortably on the small of his back. “Time!” he called, facetiously, to the darkness.

As though at the signal the night split with the roar of buckshot, and splintered with the answering crackle of a six-shooter three times repeated. The screech of the brake had deceived the messenger as to the whereabouts of the voice. He had jumped to the ground on the wrong side of the stage, thus finding himself without protection against his opponent, who, firing at the flash of the shot-gun, had brought him to the ground.

The road-agent stepped confidently forward. “Billy,” said he, pleasantly, “jest pitch me that box.”

Billy climbed over the seat and dropped a heavy, iron-bound case to the ground. “Danged if I thinks anybody kin git Buck, thar,” he remarked, in thoughtful reference to the messenger.

“Now, drive on,” commanded the road-agent.

Three hours later Billy and the sobered tenderfoot pulled into Deadwood. Ten minutes taught the camp what had occurred.

Now, it must be premised that Deadwood had recently chosen a sheriff. He did not look much like a sheriff, for he was small and weak and bald, and most childlike as to expression of countenance. But when I tell you that his name was Alfred, you will know that it was all right. To him the community looked for initiative. It expected him to organise a posse, which would, of course, consist of every man in the place not otherwise urgently employed, and to enter upon instant pursuit. He did not.

“How many is they?” he asked of Billy.

“One lonesome one,” replied the stage-driver.

“I plays her a lone hand,” announced Alfred.

You see, Alfred knew well enough his own defects. He never could make plans when anybody else was near, but always instinctively took the second place. Then, when the other’s scheme had fallen into ruins, he would construct a most excellent expedient from the wreck of it. In the case under consideration he preferred to arrange his own campaign, and therefore to work alone.

By that time men knew Alfred. They made no objection.

“Snowin’,” observed one of the chronic visitors of the saloon door. There are always two or three of such in every Western gathering.

“One of you boys saddle my bronc,” suddenly requested Alfred, and began to examine his firearms by the light of the saloon lamp.

“Yo’ ain’t aimin’ to set out to-night?” they asked, incredulously.

“I am. Th’ snow will make a good trail, but she’ll be covered come mornin’.”

So Alfred set out alone, at night, in a snowstorm, without the guidance of a solitary star, to find a single point in the vastness of the prairie.

He made the three hours of Billy and the tenderfoot in a little over an hour, because it was mostly down hill. So the agent had apparently four hours the start of him, which discrepancy was cut down, however, by the time consumed in breaking open the strong-box after Billy and the stage had surely departed beyond gunshot. The exact spot was easily marked by the body of Buck, the express messenger. Alfred convinced himself that the man was dead, but did not waste further time on him: the boys would take care of the remains next day. He remounted and struck out sharp for the east, though, according to Billy’s statement, the agent had turned north.