I accepted the invitation with some degree of fear and hesitation, which I endeavoured to conceal, as I thought it was too late to back out, and that it would never do to weaken at that point, whether they were friends or foes.  Upon entering the dugout my eyes fell upon eight as rough and villanous-looking men as I ever saw in my life.  Two of them I instantly recognized as teamsters who had been driving in Lew Simpson’s train, a few months before, and had been discharged.

They were charged with the murdering and robbing of a ranchman; and, having stolen his horses, it was supposed that they had left the country.  I gave them no signs of recognition, however, deeming it advisable to let them remain in ignorance as to who I was.  It was a hard crowd, and I concluded the sooner I could get away from them the better it would be for me.  I felt confident that they were a band of horse-thieves.

        “Where are you going, young man, and who’s with you?” asked
        one of the men, who appeared to be the leader of the gang.

“I am entirely alone.  I left Horseshoe Station this morning for a bear-hunt, and not finding any bears I had determined to camp out for the night and wait till morning,” said I; “and just as I was going into camp a few hundred yards down the creek I heard one of your horses whinnying, and then I came to your camp.”

        I was thus explicit in my statement in order, if possible,
        to satisfy the cut-throats that I was not spying upon them,
        but that my intrusion was entirely accidental.

        “Where’s your horse?” demanded the boss thief.

        “I left him down at the creek,” I answered.

They proposed going after the horse, but I thought that that would never do, as it would leave me without any means of escape, and I accordingly said, in hopes to throw them off the track, “Captain, I’ll leave my gun here and go down and get my horse, and come back and stay all night.”

I said this in as cheerful and as careless a manner as possible, so as not to arouse their suspicious in any way or lead them to think that I was aware of their true character.  I hated to part with my gun, but my suggestion of leaving it was a part of the plan of escape which I had arranged.  If they have the gun, thought I, they will surely believe that I intend to come back.  But this little game did not work at all, as one of the desperadoes spoke up and said:—­

        “Jim and I will go down with you after your horse, and you can
        leave your gun here all the same, as you’ll not need it.”