Two Plus One Makes Three.......................... 208 XXIV. Old Dog Tray Barks................................ 221 XXV. The Killer Strikes................................ 229 XXVI. Hugh Hits the Trail............................... 238 XXVII. Trapped........................................... 244 XXVIII. “As Good as the Wheat”............................ 252 XXIX. Vicky Finds a Way................................. 261 XXX. At Bell’s Camp.................................... 270 XXXI. Hugh Takes the Stump.............................. 277 XXXII. Father Marston Prophesies......................... 283 XXXIII. The Booming of the Forty-Fives.................... 293 XXXIV. The Bald Knob Strike.............................. 298 XXXV. McClintock Reads Tennyson......................... 310 XXXVI. Signed by William Thornton........................ 316 XXXVII. Hugh Explains..................................... 324 XXXVIII. The Battle of Bald Knob........................... 329 XXXIX. Sleuthing......................................... 338 XL. In the Mesh of His Own Net........................ 344 XLI. From the Junipers................................. 350 XLII. Hugh Rides to an Appointment...................... 357 XLIII. The Sacrifice..................................... 363 XLIV. Under the Stars................................... 367 BONANZA B O N A N Z A CHAPTER I THE PONY EXPRESS RIDER Far as the eye could see lay a rough and broken desert of sage. It stretched to the edge of a flat and arid world. In front of the long one-story adobe station a man waited, eyes turned to the west. His hand rested on the flat straight back of a spirited chestnut horse. Byers was small and wiry, hard as nails. His high-heeled boots, buckskin breeches, flannel shirt, and skull cap had all been chosen for utility and not for looks. He wasted no energy in useless protest, but the fat station keeper who leaned against the door jamb and chewed tobacco knew he was seething with impatience. The wrangler holding a second saddled horse knew it, too. For the pony express rider from Carson was late and his delay was keeping Byers from starting on the next lap of the transcontinental journey. The fat man sang lugubriously and tunelessly in a voice that had been created solely for his own amusement. “Old Grimes is dead, that good old man, We ne’er shall see him more. He wore a single-breasted coat, All buttoned down before.” The wrangler looked at him reproachfully and murmured, “Durned if he wouldn’t sing at a wake and spoil everybody’s enjoyment.”