“How about the Wind River country?”
“Won’t do. First off, they’ll strike right down that way after us. What’s the matter with running up Sweetwater Creek and lying out in the bad lands around the Roubideaux?”
“Good. I have a sheep-camp up that way. I can arrange to have grub sent there for us by a man I can trust.”
“All right. The Roubideaux goes.”
While they were nooning at a cow-spring, Bannister, lying on his back, with his face to the turquoise sky, became aware that a vagrant impulse had crystallized to a fixed determination. He broached it at once to his companion.
“One thing is a cinch, Mac. Neither y’u nor I will be safe in this country now until we have broken up the gang of desperadoes that is terrorizing this country. If we don’t get them they will get us. There isn’t any doubt about that. I’m not willing to lie down before these miscreants. What do y’u say?”
“I’m with y’u, old man. But put a name to it. What are y’u proposing?”
“I’m proposing that y’u and I make it our business not to have any other business until we clean out this nest of wolves. Let’s go right after them, and see if we can’t wipe out the Shoshone-Teton outfit.”
“How? They own the law, don’t they?”
“They don’t own the United States Government. When they held up a mail-train they did a fool thing, for they bucked up against Uncle Sam. What I propose is that we get hold of one of the gang and make him weaken. Then, after we have got hold of some evidence that will convict, we’ll go out and run down my namesake Ned Bannister. If people once get the idea that his hold isn’t so strong there’s a hundred people that will testify against him. We’ll have him in a Government prison inside of six months.”