"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. He utterly refused at first to accord one to his wife, as Naomi Fletcher, Folsom's housekeeper was now understood to be. That woman was in league with his enemies, he swore. That woman wrote and bade him come and then had Folsom and Loring and other armed men there to pounce upon him. Folsom came and had a few words with him, but told him bluntly that he wouldn't believe his preposterous story, and would have nothing to do with him until he withdrew the outrageous accusations against both his wife and Loring. That woman's a million times too good for you, said Folsom. Then Nevins concluded he must have a talk with Loring, and, on his message being conveyed that officer, the bearer was bidden to say that Mr. Loring refused to have anything whatever to do with him, whereat the captive ex-captain ground his teeth with rage and made the jail-yard ring with malediction. Events succeeded each other with marvelous rapidity. 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. Loring galloped by the side of the ambulance several miles, conferring with the old frontiersman all the way, then turned back to resume his work at the depot. Eagerly he wired dispatches to the General, which were forwarded from Cheyenne to the Platte, telling of his important capture, smiling quietly as he wrote. Had he not promised to produce the mysterious Newhall himself? Admirable service, indeed, had the young Engineer rendered. The testimony of Folsom, Loring, Jimmy Peters and one or two wakeful citizens all proved that there must have been a dozen of Birdsall's gang in town that night. There could be only one explanation, for a price was on the head of every man. They had come with "Newhall" and the key straight from some distant lair in the Black Hills of Wyoming, the big-shouldered range that stretches from the Laramie near its junction with the Platte southward to Colorado. They were bent on a sudden rush upon the corral in the dead of night, the forcing of the gate and the office door, then, with "Newhall" to unlock the safe, they would be up and away like the wind, with money enough to keep them all in clover--and whisky--until the last dollar was gambled or guzzled. Loring's suspicions had proved exactly correct. Loring's precautions in having the office brightly lighted and a show of armed men about had held the would-be robbers at bay during the early hours of the night, and then his prompt action in