scout persisted in asking them. His companions
crowding up encouraged him.

But numbers were not allowed for an instant to dominate the situation.
Scott whipped a revolver from his belt, cocked it, and pressed it
against the teamster's side. Dave Hawk loomed up in the moonlight and,
catching by the collar one after another of the men crowding around
Scott, Hawk, with his right hand or his left, whirled them spinning
out of his way. If a man resisted the rough treatment, Hawk
unceremoniously knocked him down and, drawing his own revolver, took
his stand beside his threatened companion.

Other men came running up, the trader among them. A few words
explained everything and the recalcitrant teamster concluded to speak.
Scott, indeed, had but little to ask: he already knew the whole story.
And when the teamster, threatened with search, pulled from his pocket
a roll of bank-notes which he acknowledged had been given him for
concealing the two fugitives and providing them with clothes, Scott
released him--only notifying the trader incidentally that the man was
robbing him and had loot, taken from the ammunition wagon, concealed
under his blanket bales just searched. This information led to new
excitement in the camp, and the Frenchman danced up and down in his
wrath as he ordered the blanket wagon searched again. But his
excitement did not greatly interest Scott and his party. They went
their way and camped at some distance down the creek from their
stirred-up neighbors.

Hawk and Bob Scott sat in the moonlight after the troopers had gone to
sleep.

"They can't fool us very much longer," muttered Scott, satisfied with
the day's work and taking the final disappointment philosophically,
"until they can get horses they are chained to the ground in this
country. There is only one place I know of where there are any horses
hereabouts and that is Jack Casement's camp."

Hawk stretched himself out on the ground to sleep. "I'll tell you,
Dave," continued Scott, "it is only about twenty miles from here to
Casement's, anyway. Suppose I ride over there to-night and wire
Stanley we've got track of the fellows. By the time you pick up the
trail in the morning I will be back--or I may pick it up myself
between here and the railroad. You keep on as far as Brushwood Creek
and I'll join you there to-morrow by sundown."

It was so arranged. The night was clear and with a good moon the ride
was not difficult, though to a man less acquai