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He drove out to the fort in the afternoon, "and what do you think he wanted?" said Old Pecksniff, whose command had been cut down to one company and the band, "wanted me to post a strong guard over the quartermaster's depot, lest that damned marauding gang of Birdsall's should gallop in some night with Burleigh's safe key and get away with the funds.
"Well," he said, "ef it's right, it's right. Ef I'd done wrong I'd stan' up an' face wot come ob it." Uncle Sheba knew when his wife would return, and was ready to receive her in the meekest of moods. He had cut an unusual quantity of wood and kindlings, but they failed to propitiate. Sissy soon called her mother to come over to her cabin to hear of Mr. Birdsall's visit, and all that it portended.
"He is not the man to take a risk, but there are those with him not so careful, and the hand that sent Birdsall's gang in chase of Dean could send them here, with the safe-key. Those few clerks and employés would be no match for them." "By heaven, I believe you're right!" cried Folsom. "Which way are you going now?" "Back to the hotel by way of the depot," was the answer. "Will you go?"
They were starting when Birdsall's scouts peered over the bank and the outlaw ordered instant pursuit, just in time to meet the fury of the flood and to see some of his fellows drowned like rats in a sewer. But who betrayed the secret? What officer or government employé revealed the fact that Dean was going with so much treasure? and what could have been his object?
Folsom's visit was early the morning after the capture, and by noon he was bowling along on a seventy-mile ride to the ranch in the Laramie valley, hurried thither by the news that Birdsall's gang had run off many of his son's best horses and that Hal Folsom himself was missing.
Old Tobe had been whirling from one side to the other, and glaring hither and thither, till in desperation he got up and began to nudge and pinch the delinquents. From one of the back pews, however, there soon arose a sound which so increased as to drown even Mr. Birdsall's stentorian voice.
The melodious duet rose and fell in great waves of sound, silencing all other voices. Contrary to Mr. Birdsall's expectations, religious fervor was only increased, and hoping to control it he asked Kern and Sissy to lead in several familiar hymns.
In the morning he went around to prepare Aun' Sheba for the ordeal, but she and Vilet had gone out upon their mercantile pursuits, and Uncle Sheba also had disappeared. To Sissy the direful intelligence was communicated. In spite of all Mr. Birdsall's efforts to console, she was left sobbing and rocking back and forth in her chair. When Kern came home, he heard the news with a rigid face.
He was in hiding, declared the knowing ones, in some of the haunts of Birdsall's fellows east of Laramie City, a growing town of whose prowess at poker and keno Gate City was professionally aware and keenly jealous. He might hide there a day or two and then get out of the country by way of the Sweetwater along the old stage route to Salt Lake or skip southward and make for Denver.
The sheriff was fairly dazed. "Who were all the fellows you had with you," he demanded, "if they weren't some of Hank Birdsall's crowd, come there to raid the quartermaster's department depot?" Nevins' indignation was fine to see. He denied all knowledge of the presence of any such. He demanded an interview with Folsom.
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