d party also.
Muldoon's well-known soft felt hat, tied to the end of a pole, was
thrust from the cave mouth and waved vigorously up and down, showing
that some of the imprisoned party still lived. One solitary shot was
aimed at the hat, followed by profound quiet.

Using every precaution, Deputy Sheriff Mulcahy deployed his men with the
intention of closing in on the outlaws from, all sides at the same
time.

At this time an interesting interruption occurred. From the underbrush
at the foot of the Camel's Back emerged three elderly women, their
clothing in tatters, and in the wildest excitement. They insisted that
the outlaws were in the cave, and hysterical with fright from their
terrible experience, declared that they had been holding the bandits in
check and demanded the reward for their capture. They were rational
enough in other ways and explained that they had been on a walking tour
with a donkey. There was, however, no donkey.

Deputy Sheriff Mulcahy, who is noted for his gallantry, sent the three
women to a safe place at the rear of the party and detailed a guard to
make them, comfortable. It being thought possible that the women were
accomplices of the outlaws, precautions were also taken to prevent their
escape.

No trace of the outlaws was found. Sheriff Muldoon and his three
deputies, now enabled to leave the cave, joined the searchers. Every
inch of Thunder Cloud Glen was searched, but without result. Across from
the cave mouth, behind a heap of fallen rocks, was found the spot from
which the outlaws had been shooting. The ground was trampled and the
rock chipped by the return fire from the cave. Here, too, was found a
new automatic revolver, a small rifle and another gun of antique
pattern. In a crevice of rock was discovered a flowered-silk bag,
containing various articles of feminine use, including a packet of
powders marked "hay-fever," a small bottle labeled "blackberry cordial,"
and a dozen or so unexploded cartridges for the revolver.

Convinced now that the three women were accomplices of the outlaws--and
this corroborated by Sheriff Muldoon's statement that he had positively
seen one of the three women peering over the rock and aiming a rifle at
him, and that the same woman, two days before, had fired at him from the
valley, knocking his gun out of his hand--Deputy Sheriff Mulcahy
promptly arrested the women and had them taken in an automobile to the
city.

At the jail, however, it was disc