nd thus to obtain a large sum of money
for his thieving wickedness.

Arrived in Saline, Mr. Hunter lost no time in putting himself in
communication with the sheriff there, who seemed to Mr. Hunter not to
be entirely reliable; indeed, from a careful survey of faces of the
loungers in the bar-room of the one-horse town of border settlers, the
sheriff appeared to be hand-in-glove with the thief, so he concluded
that his only chance of any help in the matter could come from the
landlord and the telegraph operator,--the latter having sent messages
from the rogue to Aurora, while detained there by the depth of snow.
But no time was to be lost, and a desperate effort must be made.

Mr. Hunter went into the bar-room with the sheriff, after breakfast,
and a crowd was sitting around the stove. The rogue was sent for with a
message that "a gentleman wished to speak with him." He came into the
room presently, picking his teeth, and putting on an assumed air of
indifference; he looked at the detective with a coolness quite
refreshing, as he stepped up to the bar and called for cigars, saying,
"Gentlemen, who'll have a smoke? I don't see any _gentleman_ here that
I know, besides myself."

"How are you, Ned?" said Mr. Hunter. "You don't know me?"

"Gentlemen," replied he, "on my honor, before God, I never saw this man
before in my life! This is a put-up game of a man named Stone, to bilk
me out of my fast horse; and (putting his hand on his six-shooter in
his belt) no man shall get this horse, which I bought, or me either,
alive."

The detective with great presence of mind assured him that his game was
up; that the first motion he made of resistance he was a dead man! Then
drawing a pair of manacles from his pocket, he soon clasped them on his
prisoner's wrists, and relieved the rogue of his pistols, handing them
over to the barkeeper for safety. He was taken to his room to pick up
his traps, until the horse could be saddled up to return.

By this time a reaction had taken place among the crowd, who seemed to
sympathize with the thief, and some exclaimed against taking him, and
for all they knew, he might be innocent. Here was a new danger not
expected. If these fifteen or twenty hard-looking customers should take
it into their heads to vote the man guiltless, there was an end to
justice, and the detective might find himself suspended from the
nearest cottonwood limb of a tree, dangling like Mohammed's coffin,
between heaven an