"Do you really expect to catch them?"
"I shouldn't like to be one of them," I replied.
"But how can you do it?"
"You could understand better, Miss Cullen, if you knew this country. You see every bit of water is in use by ranches, and those fellows can't go more than fifty miles without watering. So we shall have word of them, wherever they go."
"Line cut, Mr. Gordon," came from overhead at this point, making Miss
Cullen jump with surprise.
"What was that?" she asked.
I explained to her, and after making connections, I called Sanders. Much to my surprise, the agent responded. I was so astonished that for a moment I could not believe the fact.
"That is the queerest hold-up of which I ever heard," I remarked to
Miss Cullen.
"Aw, in what respect?" asked Albert Cullen's voice, and, looking up, I found that he and quite a number of the passengers had joined us.
"The road agents make us dump our fire," I said, "and yet they haven't cut the wires in either direction. I can't see how they can escape us."