Warning: if you're reading this log and you want to some day play in the published adventure "Canyon O' Doom", knock it off. You'll spoil your dinner. Or something. You can safely read up to the first break, but then you'll have to skip the logs for a while. If you have played that adventure, don't be surprised at how much I mangle it.

Hellstromme examines our heroes' equipment for a while before proclaiming that he is sure they'll be more tractable after they've stewed in the cages for a while, and returning to sleep (it is, after all, the middle of the night). A while after he leaves, one of the late arriving guards, wearing a half-mask, starts telling a very boring story to the others, who fall asleep. Dr. Vorpwhistle tries to write it down, but also falls asleep. The mystery guard turns out to be Bart. He has no idea how he got there, having come back to himself just in time to avoid slitting the throats of the other guards, but doesn't let on.

Tobey calls her machete and uses it to start hacking out of her cage, and then to work on the other's cages. Bart ties up the guards, and is filled in on the situation with the girl by the others. The girl in question stays on the bed in a fetal position, ignoring them, until Dr. Vorpwhistle bothers her with some more questions. They take some equipment off the guards while they consider what to do about her.

A plan is finally developed. Tobey hacks into the cage, finding its ghost-steel lock slow going for her evil machete, but not impenetrable. Just before she chops through the lock, Dr. Vorpwhistle shoots Dinah with his EKG, which scorches her a bit but doesn't slow her down (it does slow Tobey down, as some of the charge flows through her). Dinah forms a flame sword and tries to barbecue the good doctor, who is dragged out of the way by Bart.

Tobey finishes chopping through the lock and Elder Tanner enters the cage to distract Dinah. Which he does - she chops at him and would have cut him in two along his lapel if her sword effected him. But it mysteriously doesn't, only scorching his clothes slightly, like a hot iron. She gives out a horrible scream of frustration. Tobey's machete resonates with the scream and lets out a wail of its own as Tobey beheads Dinah in one stroke. Everything is quiet, and Dinah's head rolls under the bed, the light out of its eyes.

The posse waits a minute or two just in case Dinah revives, but that doesn't seem to be happening, so they grab the notes and their loot and head out through the escape hatch. From there they take horse to Salt Lake and catch an early train to Corrine. On the platform in Corrine, they see an express go through with Robert's horse on it, and quickly change the plan of heading back to California to look for him to a plan of following the train.

Robert, meanwhile, has been trying to resist his evil spirit as it attempts to return to Denver for some reason (possibly because it suddenly finds itself without allies). He finally has had to give up, and taken the express to Denver. Arriving there, however, he finds that the shop his spirit takes him to is a charred ruin.

At the hotel next door, the manager is happy to tell him what happened. Apparently Jacob Nicodemus's silver shop burned down a week or so before. No one knows how it happened, and Nicodemus's body was not recovered. Robert decides to take a room for the night and investigate in the morning.

By morning the posse has caught up, and run into Robert while trying to find a place to stay. They fill each other in on some of the things they've been up to, although the others are reluctant to trust Robert for fear that he might try to report back to the evil master. He tries without too much success to convince them that the spirit, upon finding the burnt lot, has retreated in confusion.

Cady spends a while searching Denver for the Pinkerton office she knows must be there, and when she finds it she tells the sleepy man there that she's looking for information about Nicodemus. He decides to punt this matter to his superiors, and Cady ends up lunching with a man named "John Johnson" - a lanky man who looks somewhat familiar, although Cady can't put her finger on why.

He's evidently a Northerner, because they discuss business immediately. He's read Daniel Turney's report on the posse, and is willing to tell Cady that the Pinkertons decided to get Nicodemus while he was unaware. Unfortunately, her turned out to be aware, and killed two agents with blasts of molten silver from his hands. Johnson says that the Pinkertons are looking for him, but so far without success. In case the posse catches up with him, he gives her a warrant authorizing them to commit mayhem on Nicodemus. Of course, it's only useful north of the Mason-Dixon line, but it's better than nothing. The rest of the lunch passes with Johnson telling amusing frontier stories, business completed.

Hey! This is where I told you to leave off. Scoot! Don't get me riled.

That afternoon, the posse goes to an announcement at the Queen City Hotel (the best hotel in Denver) - sponsored by their old friend F.A. Dillinger, the Explorer's Society (who published their favorite pamphlet) and Smith and Robards. Apparently, some of John Wesley Powell's possessions from his 1873 expedition to the Grand Canyon have been recovered - the expedition itself never having returned. A diary, in particular, hints at amazing archaeological finds waiting in the depths of the canyon. Dr. Haskins is being sponsored by Dillinger, the society, and S&R to mount another expedition along Powell's route in order to rediscover whatever he found.

Everyone in the audience is impressed and gasps at the appropriate intervals. Unfortunately, others are impressed as well - five bandits show up to take the artifacts, Beauford Dixon and his gang. After they fire a few shots into the air to prove they are serious, the crowd decides to run for the exits. Dr. Haskins tries to escape with the artifacts, but Tobey and Elder Tanner get themselves taken hostage (on purpose) and Dixon threatens to kill them unless Haskins hands over the artifacts. The posse bides its time until the crowd has mostly escaped, and then before Haskins can hand over the loot, springs into action.

Tobey, having pretended to faint on the floor, chops one bandit in the gut and drops him before even getting up. Elder Tanner keeps Dixon busy - Dixon is confused when his shots seem not to effect the Mormon, and confused that Elder Tanner keeps calmly trying to take his gun away. Fairly quickly afterwards Cady and Robert join the fray and soon there is only one bandit left (not Dixon, who is dropped by a soul blast from Cady). He surrenders.

Interviewing the bandit isn't very useful - he knows that someone hired Dixon for a few hundred dollars to steal the artifacts, but Dixon met with the man alone. Searching Dixon turns up six hundred dollars in his boot, which indicates that he lied to his gang about the size of the payout.

Meanwhile, Haskins talks to the posse about coming along on his expedition, since he had planned to hire some people here in Denver. They warn him that they're... interesting people, but he mostly ignores that, or takes it to refer to their obvious way with troubling situations.

Robert examines the artifacts - a water damaged book, a knife, a primitive necklace, and some strange fungus. For a moment, he sees a beating heart in darkness, and an eagle circling high over a huge canyon. He declares that they should go along.

They sign on for the expedition at $30 a day each, ammunition and supplies provided. Tobey urges that Dr. Haskins buy more dynamite.