ation
ago, when Medicine Bend for one winter was the terminus of the
overland railroad, vigilantes mercilessly cleaned out the town, and
the few outlaws that escaped the shotgun and the noose at Medicine
Bend found refuge in a far-away and unknown mountain gorge once named
by French trappers the Cache. Years after these outcasts had come to
infest it came one desperado more ferocious than all that had gone
before. He made a frontier retreat of the Cache, and left to it the
legacy of his evil name, Williams. Since his day it has served, as it
served before, for the haunt of outlawed men. No honest man lives in
Williams Cache, and few men of any sort live there long, since their
lives are lives of violence; neither the law nor a woman crosses Deep
Creek. But from the day of Williams to this day the Cache has had its
ruler, and when Whispering Smith rode with a little party through the
Door into the Cache the morning after the murder in Mission Valley he
sent an envoy to Rebstock, whose success as a cattle-thief had brought
its inevitable penalty. It had made Rebstock a man of consequence and
of property and a man subject to the anxieties and annoyances of such
responsibility.

Sitting once in the Three Horses at Medicine Bend, Rebstock had talked
with Whispering Smith. "I used to have a good time," he growled. "When
I was rustling a little bunch of steers, just a small bunch all by
myself, and hadn't a cent in the world, no place to sleep and nothing
to eat, I had a good time. Now I have to keep my money in the bank;
that ain't pleasant--you know that. Every man that brings a bunch of
cattle across Deep Creek has stole 'em, and expects me to buy 'em or
lend him money. I'm busy with inspecters all the time, deviling with
brands, standing off the Stock Association and all kinds of trouble.
I've got too many cows, too much money. I'm afraid somebody will shoot
me if I go to sleep, or poison me if I take a drink. Whispering Smith,
I'd like to give you a half-interest in my business. That's on the
square. You're a young man, and handy; it wouldn't cost you a cent,
and you can have half of the whole shooting-match if you'll cross Deep
Creek and help me run the gang." Such was Rebstock free from anxiety
and in a confidential moment. Under pressure he was, like all men,
different.

Whispering Smith had acquaintance even in the Cache, and after a
little careful reconnoitring he found a crippled-up thief, driving a
milch cow dow