any rest at all.  We had a brisk ride, and arrived in the immediate vicinity of the thieve’s rendezvous at about ten o’clock in the morning.  We approached the dug-out cautiously, but upon getting in close proximity to it we could discover no horses in sight.  We could see the door of the dug-out standing wide open, and we then marched up to the place.  No one was inside, and the general appearance of everything indicated that the place had been deserted—­that the birds had flown.  Such, indeed, proved to be the case.

We found a new-made grave, where they had evidently buried the man whom I had shot.  We made a thorough search of the whole vicinity, and finally found their trail going southeast in the direction of Denver.  As it would have been useless to follow them, we rode back to the station; and thus ended my eventful bear-hunt.  We had no more trouble for some time from horse-thieves after that.

During the winter of 1860 and the spring of 1861 I remained at Horseshoe, occasionally riding pony express and taking care of stock.

CHAPTER IX.

FAST DRIVING.

It was in the spring of 1861, while I was at Horseshoe, that the eastern-bound coach came in one day loaded down with passengers and baggage, and stopped for dinner; Horseshoe being a regular dinner station as well as a home station.  The passengers consisted of six Englishmen, and they had been continually grumbling about the slow time that was being made by the stages, saying that the farther they got East the slower they went.

“These blarsted ’eathens don’t know hanything habout staging, hany-’ow,” remarked one of them.

“Blarst me bloody heyes! they cawn’t stage in this country as we do in Hingland, you know,” said another.

Their remarks were overheard by Bob Scott, who was to drive the coach from Horseshoe to Fort Laramie, and he determined to give them satisfaction before they got over his route.  Scott was known to be the best reinsman and the most expert driver on the whole line of the road.  He was a very gentlemanly fellow in his general appearance and conduct, but at times he would become a reckless dare-devil, and would take more desperate chances than any other driver.  He delighted in driving wild teams on the darkest nights, over a mountain road, and had thus become the hero of many a thrilling adventure.

It happened on this day he was to drive a team of six pony express horses, which had been only partially broken in as a stage team.  As the stock-tenders were hitching them up, Bob, who was standing by, said, “I’ll show them Englishmen that we ‘blarsted heathens’ do know something about staging in this country.”  We all knew from Bob’s looks that something was up.

It required several men to hitch up this frisky team, as a man had to hold on to each one of the horses by the bits, while they were stringing them out.  The Englishmen came out from dinner, and were delighted to see the horses prancing and pawing as if anxious to start.