hemselves were, nobody seemed to know. It was
rumored, on the one hand, that they included the biggest ranch-owners
in the Northwest; on the other hand, it was stated that they were
bands of lawless Texans driven out of the Panhandle and hired by the
ranchmen at thirty dollars a month "to clean up the country." Whoever
they were, they moved swiftly and acted without hesitation. The
newspapers said little about them, partly because they knew little,
partly because there was a general tacit understanding that the whole
thing, though necessary, was a disagreeable business, and the less
said of it the better.

The truth seems to be that behind the whole movement to rid eastern
Montana and western Dakota of the horse-thieves was a loose
organization of cattlemen of which Granville Stuart and his friends
were the directing heads. What funds were needed they provided. They
designated, moreover, certain responsible men in the different
round-up districts, to whom subordinate bands of the "stranglers"
reported from time to time for orders. Each subordinate band operated
independently of the others, and the leader in one district knew
nothing as a rule of the operations of the other bands. He told the
"stranglers" what men to "get," and that was all; and a day or two
later a man here and a man there would be found dangling from a
cottonwood.

In certain cases, Packard, who successfully combined the functions of
law officer and news-gatherer, knew beforehand what men were to be
hanged. On one occasion he was informed that two notorious characters
were to be done away with on the following Thursday. The operations of
the stranglers were as a rule terrifyingly punctual, and as Thursday
was the day on which the _Cowboy_ went to press, he announced in it,
with an awful punctuality of his own, the sudden demise of the thieves
in question.

He carried the papers to the depot to put them on the afternoon train
bound for the west, for the _Cowboy_ was popular with the passengers
and he disposed of an edition of seven or eight hundred weekly with
them in excess of his regular edition. As he was about to step on the
train, two men stepped down. They were the horse-thieves whose death
he had too confidently announced.

He stared at them, shocked to the marrow, feeling as though he had
seen ghosts. Would they stay in Medora, or would they go on to where
frontier justice was awaiting them? Would they see the announcement in
the _Cowboy_?