Two bachelor brothers, who conducted a small ranch on one of the tributaries of the Upper Powderhorn, were shot dead, as they sat at their evening meal, the assassin firing, with deadly accuracy, through the open window. To the cabin door was attached a paper, on which was printed in rude letters: Rustlers, Beware!
A day after this double murder the county was thrilled by the news that Fred Hersekorn, a prosperous ranchman in another part of the valley, had been shot, as he was riding home after a trip to Wild Horse. The ranchman was murdered almost at the door of his home. His wife, who had rushed to the yard at the sound of the shot, had found her husband shot through the head. It was dusk, but she descried a horseman riding across the prairie, on the opposite side of the road. The rider turned with a defiant wave of the hand, and the woman saw that he wore a black mask, covering the upper part of his face.
On a tree beside the driveway leading to the ranchman’s house was found a sign similar to that posted on the cabin of the assassin’s victims on the Upper Powderhorn.
The countryside was terrorized, the feeling of helplessness being intensified because the sheriff was notoriously indifferent to anything that was not to the best interests of the big cattlemen. Men were afraid to meet on the main-traveled roads. When a traveler saw another traveler approaching there was a mutual survey at long distance. Then, to make assurance doubly sure, each horseman usually made a detour. Men did not stir outdoors unless they were armed. Curtains were put up at ranch house windows that had never previously known such obstructions to the light.
In spite of the fact that hundreds of ranchmen were searching for and laying traps for him, night and day, the visitations of the masked horseman went on. Arson was added to his crimes, as he burned the ranch of a newcomer on Lone Lake Mesa, after shooting the homesteader, as the others had been shot. Again men examined the mysterious square of paper, with its poorly printed message of warning.
Milton Bertram and Arch Beam, on the headwaters of the Roaring Fork, the stream which later on foamed past the naturalist’s cabin, felt that only extreme vigilance could save them from being victims of the assassin. They went cautiously about their work each day and seldom exposed themselves to fire from the points of attack that covered their cabin, without first making reconnaissance.
They felt that their caution was not misplaced, when, on two occasions, they found pony tracks in the thickets that commanded unobstructed views of their homestead.
“That feller is a real rifleman, whoever he might be,” observed Arch Beam. “He never shoots until he has his man well covered. But some day he’s goin’ to slip up, and a better man than he will do the shootin’ first.”
“I hope that time isn’t far off, Arch,” returned Bertram. “There’s no use fooling around in the open with an enemy like that, a man who won’t even give you as much warning as a rattlesnake gives before he strikes. He’d simply add you to his victims, as easily as you might mark up another point on a billiard string. A man like that has to be caught off his guard. He knows there are plenty of men looking for him in the open, and that’s why he’s not going to be caught there.”
“Where are you goin’ to get him, then?” asked Archie doubtfully.