Another victim! Then another! Now it was certain that some awful agency was at work, and that the family was doomed. The only hope of safety lay in flight. One night the four surviving children, three grown sons and a daughter, set out to cross the plains. They had a team of strong horses, and pushed on in the hope of falling in with some train of emigrants, joining them, and thus blending in with and mixing with their members, throw the enemy from off the track.

They found their train, joined it, crossed the Missouri River, and moving on, began to deem themselves secure.

Soon it came the turn for one of the brothers to stand guard. He kissed his pale, sad sister, as he shouldered his gun and went on duty. And it was well that he said good-bye, for he was never heard of afterwards.

As they neared the Rocky Mountains, a party of half a dozen rode out from the train to take buffalo. One of the two remaining brothers was of this party. He never returned.

Now only two remained. The brother and sister often sat silent and bowed by the campfire, and looked sadly into each others' faces. What could they be thinking of? What was the one question in their minds? The man could only have been saying to himself, "Sister, whose turn next? is it you or I?" His brow darkened as he thought how terrible it would be to leave his sister all alone. And there was an old Roman n.o.bility in the wish that she might die before him.

The question was not long unsettled. As they neared the Sierras, a stray shot from the willows that grow on the banks of the Humboldt, laid the brother dead at his sister's feet.

Nancy Williams was now left alone. One day, as they ascended the Sierras, she too was missed. Little was said. People feared to speak.

There was something terrible in this persecution to the death in the dark. Who were these men, and where? Did they sit at your very elbow in camp, and dip from the same dish? They too could keep secrets as well as the a.s.sa.s.sins of their so-called prophet.

What had become of Nancy Williams? Had she too really been murdered? or had she in terror stolen away in disguise, and made her way into the mines alone? No one knew. People soon became too much concerned with their own affairs, as they neared the gold-fields, and men only now and then thought of the name of Nancy Williams.

One day two strange men entered the Howling Wilderness saloon, and spoke in signs and monosyllables to the cinnamon-haired bar-keeper, and pointed up toward the cabin of the "Widow." Sandy entered as these two men went out.

The bar-keeper looked at Sandy a long time, as if some great question was battling in his mind. At last, in a husky and hurried voice, he said, as he looked out through the door, and over his shoulder, as if he feared the very logs of the house might betray him:

"Them's Danites."

"What in h.e.l.l do they want at the Forks?" The sledge-hammer fist fell on the counter like a thunder-bolt.

"Shoo!" The red, bristled head of the bar-keeper reached over toward Sandy. The bar-keeper's hand reached out and took Sandy by the loose blue-shirt bosom, and drew him close up to the red head. Then again looking toward the door, and then back over his shoulder, as if he suspected that his own bottles might hear him, he said, in a sharp hissing whisper, "Shoo! They want Nancy Williams!"

Sandy's mind at once turned to the Widow. He dared not trust the bar-keeper. In truth, no man dared trust his best friend where this most terrible and secret order was concerned. He did not answer this man, but silently, and as unconcerned as possible, turned away and went back to his cabin.

CHAPTER VII.

THAT BOY.

As before remarked, the boy poet, Little Billie Piper, sly and timid as he was with the men, was about the first to make friends with this first woman in this wild Eden. Men noted this as they did all things that in any way touched the life or affairs of the Widow, and made their observations accordingly.

"Thim's a bad lot," said the Irishman, as he rested his elbow on the counter, and held his gla.s.s poised in the air; "thim's a bad lot fur the woman, as writes poetry."

Then the son of Erin winked at the row of men by his side--winked right and left--lifted his gla.s.s, shut both his eyes, and swallowed his "tarantula juice," as they called it in the mines.

Then this man wiped his broad mouth on his red sleeve, hitched up the broad belt that supported his duck breeches, and said, with another wink:

"Jist think of Bryan; that fellow, Lord O'Bryan. Why, gints, I tell yez he was pizen on the six."

But the Parson, the great rival of Sandy for the Widow's affections, took a deeper interest in this than that of an idle gossip.

It was with a lofty sort of derision in his tone and manner, that he now always spoke of the strange little poet, as "That Boy."

The Parson regarded him with bitter envy, as he oftentimes, at dusk and alone, saw him enter the Widow's cabin. At such times the Parson would usually stride up and down the trail, and swear to himself till he fairly tore the bark from the trees.

On one occasion, the boy returning to his own cabin at an earlier hour than usual, was met in the trail, where it ran around the spur of the mountain, on a high bluff, by the infuriated Parson.

Little Billie, as was his custom, gave him the trail, all of the trail, and stood quite aside on the lower hill-side, to let him pa.s.s.

But the Parson did not pa.s.s on. He came close up to the boy as he stood there alone in the dusk, half trembling with fear, as the Parson approached.

The strong man did not speak at first. His face was terrible with rage and a strange tumult of thought.

The stars were half hidden by the sailing clouds, and the moon had not risen. It was almost dark. Away up on the mountain side a wolf called to his companion, and a lonesome night-bird, with a sharp cracked voice, kept up a mournful monotone in the canon below.

The boy began to tremble, as the man towered up above him, and looked down into his uplifted face.

"By G.o.d, youngster," muttered the man between his teeth. The boy sank on his knees, as he saw the Parson look up and down the trail, as if to make sure that no one was in sight.

Then he reached his great hand and clutched him sharp by the shoulder:

"Come here! come! come with me!"

The broad hand tightened like a vice on the shoulder. The boy tried to rise, but trembled and half fell to the ground. The infuriated, half monster man, held tight to his shoulder, and led toward the precipice.

The boy, half lifted, half led, half dragged, found himself powerless in the hands of the Parson, and was soon on the brink of the canon.

"Now sir, d.a.m.n you, what have you been doing at the Widow's?"

The boy stood trembling before him.

"Boy! do you hear; I intend to pitch you over the rocks, and break your infernal slim little neck!"

The boy still was silent. He could not even lift his eyes. He was preparing to die.

"Now sir, tell me the truth; what have you been doing at the Widow's?"

The boy trembled like a bird in the clutches of a hawk, but could not speak.

The Parson looked up the trail and down the trail; all was silent save the roar of the water in the canon below, the interrupted howl of the wolf on the hill, and the mournful and monotonous call of the night-bird. He looked up through the canon at the sky. It was a dark and cloudy night. Now and then a star stood out in the fresco of clouds, but it was a gloomy night.

"Now you look here," and he shook the boy by the shoulder and laughed like a demon. "Don't you know that if you go on this way you will fall over this bluff some night and break your cussed little neck? Don't you know that? You boy! You brat!"

Still the boy could not speak or even lift his face.

"I'll save you the trouble," said the Parson between his teeth. "'The boys' will rather like it. They will say they knew you would break your neck some night."

The boy did not speak, but beneath the iron clutch of the Parson settled to his knees.

"Now sir, you have just one minute. Do you see that star? When that flying cloud covers that star, then you die! and may G.o.d help you--and me."