The sheriff whistled softly to himself and scratched his head.
Bucky would not have waited for instructions. By this time that
live wire would have finished telephoning all over Southern
Arizona and would himself have been in the saddle. But Bucky in
Flagstaff, nearly three hundred miles from the battlefield, so
far as the present emergency went, might just as well be in
Calcutta. Collins wired instructions to the ranger and sent a
third message to the lieutenant.
"I expect I'll hear this time he's skipped over to Winslow," he
told himself, with a rueful grin.
The special with the posse on board drew out at midnight sharp.
It reached the scene of the holdup before daybreak. The loading
board was lowered and the horses led from the car and picketed.
Meanwhile two of the men lit a fire and made breakfast while the
others unloaded the outfit and packed for the trail. The first
faint streaks of gray dawn were beginning to fleck the sky when
Collins and Dillon, with a lantern, moved along the railroad bed
to the little clump of cottonwoods where the outlaws had probably
lain while they waited for the express.
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