through the side board of the wagon-box itself; yet
there was no answer. Scott, taking his horse, while Hawk remained in
hiding and covered the scene with his own rifle, led the horse so that
it served as a shelter and walked directly toward the wagon itself. As
he neared it he approached from the front, pausing at times to survey
what he saw. Hawk watched him lead his unwilling horse, trembling with
fear, up to the dead team as they lay in the bright sunlight, and saw
Scott take hold of the protruding boot, peer above it into the wagon
itself and, without turning his head, beckon Hawk to come up.

Under the canvas, the driver of the wagon lay dead with the lines
clutched in his stiffened fingers, just as he had fallen when death
struck his horses. The two frontiersmen needed no explanation of what
they saw in the scarred and blackened face of the outlaw. A bolt of
lightning had killed him and stricken both horses in the same instant.
Bob crawled into the wagon and with Hawk's help dragged the dead man
forward into the sunlight. Both recognized him. It was Bucks's
assailant and enemy, the Medicine Bend and Spider Water gambler,
Perry.

CHAPTER XVIII

The two men, aided by the crew of the train that now came down the
Bitter Creek grade, got the dead body of the outlaw back to Point of
Rocks just as a mixed train from the east reached there, with Stanley
and a detail of cavalry aboard. Stanley walked straight to Bucks,
caught him by the shoulders, and shook him as if to make sure he was
all right.

"Gave you a warm reception, did they, Bucks?"

"Moderately warm, colonel."

Stanley shook his head. "It is all wrong. They never should have sent
you out here alone," he declared brusquely. "These superintendents
seem to think they are railroading in Ohio instead of the Rocky
Mountains. Dave," he continued, turning to Hawk as the latter came up,
"I hear you have just brought in Perry dead. What have we got here,
anyway?"

"Some of the Medicine Bend gang," returned Hawk tersely.

"What are they doing?"

"Evening up old scores, I guess."

Stanley looked at the dead man as they laid him out on the platform:
"And hastening their own day of reckoning," he said. "There shall be
no more of this if we have to drive every man of the gang out of the
country. Who do you think was with Perry, Bob?" he demanded,
questioning Scott.

"There is nothing to show that till we get them--and we ought to be
after them now,"