“Y’ cain’t blame ’em,” Nomad commented, as if he felt he ought to do some of the talking. “Even Buffler was tuck in complete.”
“Budt only at fairst,” corrected the German, coming to the scout’s defense.
“What I’m up hyer fer mainly,” said the sheriff, “is to git your idea of what move I’d better make. Juniper Joe and Benson are partners once more. What deviltry them two can’t hatch up when they’re together there’s no tellin’. They’ll shore go back to the road if they haven’t already. I’d like to lay ’em by the heels.”
“The only thing that can be done for a time,” the scout answered, “aside from keeping up a continual watch, is to stop shipments of gold out of Blossom Range until they have been apprehended.”
“Which would tie up the business of the camp,” Shepard objected.
“But it’s better policy to keep the gold here than to lose it. Yet there is one other thing that can be done: that is to send such a strong guard with every stage that goes through that the road agents won’t dare hold it up.”
“You see, speakin’ gin’rally, we figger that we’re workin’ ag’inst jest two men,” said the sheriff; “when, as a matter of fact, we don’t know how many we’re up ag’inst. Benson and Juniper Joe, in my opinion, has got scores of men who will help ’em, right hyer in this camp. I remember two months ago, when Benson was workin’ the road, we tried sendin’ through strong guards with the stages. There was ten men on one stage that was held up in the cañon jest t’other side o’ Stag Mountain. But there was twenty of the road agents that held it up. Five of the guards was shot dead in the fight, two more wounded, and the whole shipment was lost. They even took the stage horses. That’s the kind of men we’ve got to deal with.”
He knocked the ashes from his cigar, swung one leg over the other, and went on:
“Then there’s the Utes. They ain’t road agents, but they’re treacherous devils, and they hide the road agents. They do it because the agents supplies ’em with whisky and amm’nition. Old Iron Bow, the Ute chief, is as big a rascal as ever walked on two legs, and the most of his waryers air jest like him.
“Three weeks ago, when I was after Jimmy Blood, I had a tip that he had hiked to Iron Bow and that the chief was hidin’ him. So I goes up there with a gang of my men at my back, and demands him. The chief he gives me the laugh; says ’t no white man ain’t been in that village for a month. I wanted to search the tepees, but he wouldn’t let me. I didn’t dare try it without his consent; I didn’t have men enough, in the first place, and, in the second, if I’d got the Utes started, there’d been a merry old party; it might ’a’ put ’em on the warpath, and I didn’t care to take that risk. Jimmy was there, I reckon; but he made a sneak afterwards, and got out of the country. He was heard of, anyway, over in Albuquerque.”