Trying to figure out what to do about Bart, Elder Tanner flips open the Book of Mormon at random and arrives at Mosiah 7:18. This is considered by him to indicate that there is still a struggle to be made for Bart and Bart's soul. No one was really feeling enthusiastic about killing Bart and so they are willing to accept this, though Bart is to be bound and gagged at night. They decide to continue to the railhead in order to investigate the Chinese slaves rumor. The trip takes them two days riding across arid terrain.
The first night they make camp near a river, and early in the morning Robert and Cady are on watch. Robert thinks he sees something moving... maybe a jackalope? In any case, he and Cady are distracted when a giant horned snake starts wrapping up Bart. He, of course, can't make much noise. It bites him on the nose, then licks him confusedly. Finally it releases the confusingly dead prey and as Bart watches horrified transforms into his spitting image! It picks up Tobey's big rifle (thankfully as a club) and whacks Robert with it before Bart can get anyone's attention.
After that there's some confusion, but less than you would expect. Robert shoots from the hip and blows "Bart's" foot off, and the creature reverts to snake form. It bites Robert, whose gun jams. Cady lands a soul blast on it, and then James awakens and finishes it off. Robert finds himself woozy and passes out. He stays paralyzed for much of the morning, worrying everyone. He comes around by the time they've built a litter for him, though, and they continue to the railhead. Once there, Elder Tanner and Elder Cady (disguised as a Mormon missionary) go on to the camp, while everyone else waits in the nearby pass.
Cady and Joseph find a town composed of tents, with a saloon, general store, and fancy house on rail cars at a siding. This is clearly why no one comes to town - they've got one here. After Joseph has preached on the street for a while, a regulator arrives and offers them a spare tent for the night. He doesn't recommend going beyond the tents and the guard towers, though - the area is crawling with Apaches. Later on, Cady ignores his advice and scouts around under the protection of incognito. The only strange things around are the three metal boxcars with some sort of steam engine on top, and the tanker car, all four pulled up together on a siding away from the main tents. She isn't able to determine anything about them, though, and decides to turn in for the night rather than invite nighttime disaster. In the morning she and Elder Tanner rejoin the others, and they head back to Tombstone.
When they get back, Cady goes to the Oriental to be a Doc Holliday groupie, flirting with him, losing money, and chatting. He offers to buy the pretty loser a drink after a while, and she takes the opportunity to tell the story of the lucky silver coin that turned unlucky. Then she uses her spells to peer into his pockets - he does in fact have the coin in a breast pocket. Unfortunately, he notices this and Cady finds herself with a derringer discreetly against her ribs. James, who is also in the bar as her protector, is distracted by a lout and doesn't notice.
The Doc wants to know what the spell was, and she tells him, and then wants to know what she wants with the coins. Cady says her long term plan is to destroy them. There's some interrogation after that, with Holliday taking out the coin and playing with it on the bar (and putting away his gun). Cady sticks to her story, admitting that she's not powerful enough to destroy it now. Holliday doesn't believe her, and in demonstration she tries to stab it with a knife.
To her surprise it works, although the coin skitters off undamaged. The lout from earlier picks it up, but Holliday intimidates it out of him and buys him a drink afterwards. He suggests that he can destroy the coin, and Cady says he can't do it right then. Maybe later, when no one is around. Cady then leaves hurriedly and rejoins the others, wanting to make sure she can't tell them he's going to destroy the coin or do anything about it herself. She ends up getting incredibly drunk.
In the morning, unfortunately, the detector pendant still behaves the same way: it seems as though Holliday has not destroyed his coin.