d was stirred. What made the
affair more dreadful was that it had occurred on the time of Number
Six, the east-bound passenger train, held that morning at Sleepy Cat
by an engine failure. Glover came to look into the matter. The
testimony of all tended to one conclusion--that the quarry switch had
been thrown at some time between four-thirty and five o'clock that
morning. Inferences were many: tramps during the early summer had been
unusually troublesome and many of them had been rigorously handled by
trainmen; robbery might have been a motive, as the express cars on
train Number Six carried heavy specie shipments from the coast.

Yet a means so horrible as well as so awkward and ineffective
seemed unlike mountain outlaws. Strange men from headquarters were on
the ground as soon as they could reach the wreck, men from the
special-service department, and a stock inspector who greatly
resembled Whispering Smith was on the ground looking into the brands
of the wrecked cattle. Glover was much in consultation with him,
and there were two or three of the division men, such as Anderson,
Young, McCloud, and Lee, who knew him but could answer no inquiries
concerning his long stay at the wreck.

A third and more exciting event soon put the quarry wreck into the
background. Ten days afterward an east-bound passenger train was
flagged in the night at Sugar Buttes, twelve miles west of Sleepy Cat.
When the heavy train slowed up, two men boarded the engine and with
pistols compelled the engineman to cut off the express cars and pull
them to the water-tank a mile east of the station. Three men there in
waiting forced the express car, blew open the safe, and the gang rode
away half an hour later loaded with gold coin and currency.

Had a stick of dynamite been exploded under the Wickiup there could
not have been more excitement at Medicine Bend. Within three hours
after the news reached the town a posse under Sheriff Van Horn, with a
carload of horseflesh and fourteen guns, was started for Sugar Buttes.
The trail led north and the pursuers rode until nearly nightfall. They
crossed Dutch Flat and rode single file into a wooded canyon, where
they came upon traces of a camp-fire. Van Horn, leading, jumped from
his horse and thrust his hand into the ashes; they were still warm,
and he shouted to his men to ride up. As he called out, a rifle
cracked from the box-elder trees ahead of him. The sheriff fell, shot
through the head, and a dep