When Shields arrived to take charge of the trouble, accompanied by Charley and two others, he sought the foreman, for Charley had news of a grave nature for the Cross Bar-8.
The foreman ran out of the bunk house and met them near the corral, where the disagreement had taken place.
“By the living God, Sheriff!” he cried, white with anger. “This thing has got to stop if we have to call out the cavalry! We can’t get a decent breakfast–not a whole plate or pan in the house! Our cayuses and cows are being slaughtered by the score! And as for the rest of our possessions, they are so full of holes that they whistle when the wind blows!”
“So I heard,” replied the sheriff. “I’ll do my best.”
“We’ve been doing our best, but what good is it?” cried the foreman. “We are so plumb sleepy we go to sleep moving about! We dassent show our faces after dark without being made a target of! Our new wagons are wrecks, the corrals destroyed and the best grass made us fight for our lives while it burned! That cursed outlaw has got to be killed, d––n him!”
“We’ll do our best, Sneed,” responded Shields. “I reckon we can stop it; at least we can give you a good night’s rest.”
“Where are my five punchers?” Sneed asked; his words bellowed until his voice broke. “And Bucknell! D––n near dead before you found him above the cañon, tied up like a package of flour!”
“Well, Charley can tell you about your men,” Shields responded, viewing the devastation on all sides of him.
“Well, what about them?” cried the foreman turning to the sheriff’s deputy, anger flashing anew in his eyes.
“Well,” Charley slowly began, “I was taking a short cut this morning, and when I got to a place about a dozen miles southeast of the mouth of Bill’s cañon, I saw five bodies on the desert. They were your cow-punchers, and they was so full of arrows that they looked like big brooms. Apaches, I reckon,” he added sententiously.