ascent from the cañon below.  I chose the latter, as being the freest from the chance of observation.  It required the greatest caution to thread the narrow gorge; but I finally reached the rocky bench, about one thousand feet below the grade of the railroad.  It was now broad daylight, and I commenced cautiously the search for Summerfield’s body.  There is quite a dense undergrowth of shrubs thereabouts, lining the interstices of the granite rocks so as to obscure the vision even at a short distance.  Brushing aside a thick manzanita bush, I beheld the dead man at the same instant of time that another person arrived like an apparition upon the spot.  It was Bartholomew Graham, known as “Black Bart.”  We suddenly confronted each other, the skeleton of Summerfield lying exactly between us.  Our recognition was mutual.  Graham advanced, and I did the same; he stretched out his hand and we greeted one another across the prostrate corpse.

Before releasing my hand, Black Bart exclaimed in a hoarse whisper, “Swear, Gillson, in the presence of the dead, that you will forever be faithful, never betray me, and do exactly as I bid you, as long as you live!”

I looked him full in the eye.  Fate sat there, cold and remorseless as stone.  I hesitated; with his left hand he slightly raised the lapels of his coat, and grasped the handle of a navy revolver.

“Swear!” again he cried.

As I gazed, his eyeballs assumed a greenish tint, and his brow darkened into a scowl.  “As your confederate,” I answered, “never as your slave.”

“Be it so!” was his only reply.

The body was lying upon its back, with the face upwards.  The vultures had despoiled the countenance of every vestige of flesh, and left the sockets of the eyes empty.  Snow and ice and rain had done their work effectually upon the exposed surfaces of his clothing, and the eagles had feasted upon the entrails.  But underneath, the thick beaver cloth had served to protect the flesh, and there were some decaying shreds left of what had once been the terrible but accomplished Gregory Summerfield.  A glance told us all these things.  But they did not interest me so much as another spectacle, that almost froze my blood.  In the skeleton gripe of the right hand, interlaced within the clenched bones, gleamed the wide-mouthed vial which was the object of our mutual visit.  Graham fell upon his knees, and attempted to withdraw the prize from the grasp of its dead possessor.  But the bones were firm, and when he finally succeeded in securing the bottle, by a sudden wrench, I heard the skeleton fingers snap like pipe-stems.

“Hold this a moment, whilst I search the pockets,” he commanded.

I did as directed.

He then turned over the corpse, and thrusting his hand into the inner breast-pocket, dragged out a roll of MSS., matted closely together and stained by the winter’s rains.  A further search eventuated in finding a roll of small gold coin, a set of derringer pistols, a rusted double-edged dirk, and a pair of silver-mounted spectacles.  Hastily covering over the body with leaves and branches cut from the embowering shrubs, we shudderingly left the spot.