d," I ejaculated, and walked over to where the
mail-car had stood, to see just how bad the shooting was. When I got
there and faced about, it was really impossible to believe any man
could have done so badly, for raising my own Winchester to the pole
put it twenty degrees out of range and nearly forty degrees in the
air. Yet there were the cartridge-shells on the ground, to show that I
was in the place from which the shots had been fired.

While I was still cogitating over this, the special train I had
ordered out from Flagstaff came in sight, and in a few moments was
stopped where I was. It consisted of a string of three flats and a box
car, and brought the sheriff, a dozen cowboys whom he had sworn in as
deputies, and their horses. I was hopeful that with these fellows'
greater skill in such matters they could find what I had not, but
after a thorough examination of the ground within a mile of the
robbery they were as much at fault as I had been.

"Them cusses must have a dugout nigh abouts, for they couldn't 'a' got
away without wings," the sheriff surmised.

I didn't put much stock in that idea, and told the sheriff so.

"Waal, round up a better one," was his retort.

Not being able to do that, I told him of the bullets in the telegraph
pole, and took him over to where the mail-car had stood.

"Jerusalem crickets!" was his comment as he measured the aim. "If
that's where they put two of their pills, they must have pumped the
other four inter the moon."

"What other four?" I asked.

"Shots," he replied sententiously.

"The road agents only fired four times," I told him.

"Them and your pards must have been pretty nigh together for a minute,
then," he said, pointing to the ground.

I glanced down, and sure enough, there were six empty
cartridge-shells. I stood looking blankly at them, hardly able to
believe what I saw; for Albert Cullen had said distinctly that the
train-robbers had fired only four times, and that the last three
Winchester shots I had heard had been fired by himself. Then, without
speaking, I walked slowly back, searching along the edge of the
road-bed for more shells; but, though I went beyond the point where
the last car had stood, not one did I find. Any man who has fired a
Winchester knows that it drops its empty shell in loading, and I could
therefore draw only one conclusion--namely, that all seven discharges
of the Winchesters had occurred up by the mail-car. I had heard of men
su