was looked or hoped for. One December afternoon, just as the lights were peeping out here and there in the bustling shops of the busy Western town, and a thick, heavy cloud of snow was settling noiselessly upon roof and roadway, and all the foot-hills to the west were robed in white, and all the mountain passes deep in drifts, and the managers of the First National were congratulating themselves that their collections in the swarming mining settlements across the range were complete, and the thousands in coin and greenbacks safely hoarded in their vaults, and brewer Breifogle and two other opulent directors were seated with the president in the bank parlor, rubbing their hands over the neat balance exhibited, and discussing the propriety of a congratulatory despatch to Congressman Pierce, now at his post of duty at Washington, and the paying-teller had just completed the summing up of his cash account, and the bookkeeper was stowing away his huge volumes, and a clerk was lugging sacks of coin and stacks of Treasury notes into the open door of the vault, under the vigilant eye of the cashier, and the janitor had pulled down the shades and barred the iron shutters, and everything spoke eloquently of business security and prosperity—in stepped a squad of velvet-footed, soft-voiced, slouch-hatted strangers, and in the twinkling of an eye cashier and clerk, tellers, book-keeper, and janitor were as completely covered by six-shooters as the new-comers were with snow. It was a clear case of "hands up, everybody." Two of the party sidled into the parlor and stood guard over the magnates, three or four held the outer officials in statuesque discomfort, while two deft-handed individuals loaded up with bills and bags of gold, and vanished softly as they came. Their comrades gave them a start of sixty seconds, and then slowly and calmly backed out into the street, revolvers levelled to the last, and in less than four minutes from the moment of their entrance not one of the gang was in sight. Timing their arrival exactly, they had ridden into town from the northwest just at dusk, left their strong, spirited horses, held by accomplices in a side street not fifty yards away; were in and out, up and away again, in less time than it takes to tell it, and with them ninety thousand dollars in cash.

Vain the rush of clerks and tellers and directors into the snow-covered street. Vain the yells of "Murder!" "Robbers!" "Road-agents!" A crowd collected in a few minutes, but all were afoot and powerless to follow. It would be an hour before the sheriff could muster a mounted party strong enough to pursue; but he had his wits about him.

"It's the old Hatton gang, sure!" he cried. "They dare not go to the mines. They'll make for Marcy's Pass, and scatter when they get to the cove beyond. There's only one hope." And like a deer the active frontiersman ran to the telegraph office.

"Rush this out to the fort!" he cried, as he pencilled a despatch.

Colonel Belknap, with a knot of officers, was in the club-room just after stables when the despatch was handed to him by the breathless operator. He was an old campaigner, who had served almost a lifetime in the West.

"Mount your troop instantly, Lane!" he called to one of his most trusted captains. "Never mind their supper; they can have that later. Listen to this." And he read the despatch aloud.

The entrance to Marcy's Pass lay about nine miles nearly due west from town. Hatch's Cove was a lovely nook in the summer-time,