uty springing from his saddle to pick him
up was shot in precisely the same way, through the head. The riderless
horses bolted; the posse, thrown into a panic, did not fire a shot,
and for an hour dared not ride back for the bodies. After dark they
got the two dead men and at midnight rode with them into Sleepy Cat.

When the news reached McCloud he was talking with Bucks over the
wires. Bucks had got into headquarters at the river late that night,
and was getting details from McCloud of the Sugar Buttes robbery
when the superintendent sent him the news of the killing of Van Horn
and the deputy. In the answer that Bucks sent came a name new to the
wires of the mountain division and rarely seen even in special
correspondence, but Hughie Morrison, who took the message, never
forgot that name; indeed, it was soon to be thrown sharply into the
spotlight of the mountain railroad stage. Hughie repeated the
message to get it letter-perfect; to handle stuff at the Wickiup
signed "J. S. B." was like handling diamonds on a jeweller's tongs
or arteries on a surgeon's hook; and, in truth, Bucks's words were
the arteries and pulse-beat of the mountain division. Hughie handed
the message to McCloud and stood by while the superintendent read:

Whispering Smith is due in Cheyenne to-morrow. Meet him at the
Wickiup Sunday morning; he has full authority. I have told him
to get these fellows, if it takes all the money in the
treasury, and not to stop till he cleans them out of the Rocky
Mountains. J. S. B.

CHAPTER XI

AT THE THREE HORSES

"Clean them out of the Rocky Mountains; that is a pretty good
contract," mused the man in McCloud's office on Sunday morning. He sat
opposite McCloud in Bucks's old easy chair and held in his hand
Bucks's telegram. As he spoke he raised his eyebrows and settled back,
but the unusual depth of the chair and the shortness of his legs left
his chin helpless in his black tie, so that he was really no better
off except that he had changed one position of discomfort for another.
"I wonder, now," he mused, sitting forward again as McCloud watched
him, "I wonder--you know, George, the Andes are, strictly speaking, a
part of the great North American chain--whether Bucks meant to include
the South American ranges in that message?" and a look of mildly
good-natured anticipation overspread his face.

"Suppose you wire him and find out," suggested McCloud.

"No, George, no! Bucks