the foremost rider, tall, spare, with
long, grizzled mustache and fiery eyes, threw himself from saddle and
came bounding up the steps. He was surrounded in an instant, only one
man hanging back. The slender young fellow in the grimy cap and
overalls quietly stepped into the dark interior of the caboose.

In the glare of the unclouded sunshine, breathing hard from his
exertion, his hand grasped successively by Shiner and the three
soldiers, the veteran trooper told his hurried tale, while, one after
another, his followers, wellnigh exhausted, labored after him, and
finally rolled stiffly to _terra firma_ at the station, their wretched
livery mounts, with dripping, quivering flanks and drooping heads,
stood straddling close at hand, too utterly used up to stagger away.

Nolan's story was brief but explicit. Somebody in the swarm that
overwhelmed the Narrow Gauge train the previous night had crept back to
town after midnight and started the story that young Breifogle had been
slugged by the gang. By early morning it got to the father's ears. With
the sheriff and some friends he had driven down in the wake of No. 4,
found plenty of men who could tell of the mobbing, but none who could
tell of his son. The miners had scattered; the few passengers also,
glad that they were not "wanted" by that infuriated crowd. It was then
after sunrise, and, almost crazed by anxiety and wrath, Breifogle had
hurried back to Argenta. His first thought seemed to be vengeance on
Nolan, whom rumor declared the ringleader of his son's assailants, and
a warrant was out for his arrest, even as the big Mogul was rolling
into the yard, with its dingy-brown train of freight-cars and the
battered body of that luckless youth, Nolan's assailant at Silver
Shield.

The first full peril of his situation broke upon Nolan the instant the
news was rushed to him. Innocent of any part in the assault though he
was--ignorant of it, in fact, until dawn--he well knew that every
artifice would be played against him, and that all the power, the
means, and methods of the Breifogle clique would be lavishly used. Long
imprisonment would be sure, harsh trial certain, acquittal improbable,
hanging almost a certainty.

"Away with you! Get back to the mines and the mountains!" was the
instant warning, and without the loss of a minute, mounted on such
horses as his friends could hire, he and three of his trustiest
followers had galloped away. They thought the sheriff was