Securely bound with her face toward a stake, was a young girl--a
maiden of perhaps seventeen summers, whom, at a single glance, one
might surmise was remarkably pretty.

She was stripped to the waist, and upon her snow-white back were
numerous welts from which trickled diminutive rivulets of crimson. Her
head was dropped against the stake to which she was bound, and she was
evidently insensible.

With a cry of astonishment and indignation Fearless Frank leaped
forward to sever her bonds, when like so many grim phantoms there
filed out of the chaparral, and circled around him, a score of
hideously painted savages. One glance at the portly leader satisfied
Frank as to his identity. It was the fiend incarnate--Sitting Bull!




CHAPTER II.

DEADWOOD DICK, THE ROAD-AGENT.


"=$500 Reward:= For the apprehension and arrest of a
notorious young desperado who hails to the name of Deadwood
Dick. His present whereabouts are somewhat contiguous to the
Black Hills. For further information, and so forth, apply
immediately to

HUGH VANSEVERE,