“I was goin’ to sell the stuff to the Utes; but I’ve got to have whisky as a basis, to soak the things up in; that’s why I was goin’ into Blossom Range--to git the whisky. Can’t do nothin’ without it. I doctor the whisky with the tablets. A red jest naturally likes the stuff, anyway; put that dope into it, and you couldn’t pry him away from it with a crowbar. He’ll trade everything he’s got fer it. I’ve heard them Utes have got some gold dust, and I know they’ve got furs and pelts. So that was my lay. I thought I’d be safe there for a time, and that maybe the Bettses would git tired, or lose the trail.” Tim Benson sat thinking over this, forming his crafty plans. He knew now that Buffalo Bill would “get” him unless he could hurl a force against the scout’s party and crush it. That force might be the Utes. “I’ve got the whisky,” he announced, “and I’ll go in with you in this thing; it will make for the safety of both of us. I’ve been using the Ute village as a hide-out on more than one occasion, and have found it a mighty good place. But Cody has brought up Matt Shepard, the sheriff, with a posse, and gone all through it, more than once recently. And he’ll do it again. The Utes are afraid of the sheriff and his posse; though without that posse backing him they wouldn’t stand it. Iron Bow told me the last time I was with him that he couldn’t hide me again; he’s afraid Shepard will lug him off to the Blossom Range jail. So it’s not that the old scamp ain’t willing enough to hide me; and he wants the whisky I give him for it.” “Where do ye keep this whisky? Git it in the town every time?” “I used to. Lately I had a burro load cached in the hills, as a thing to fall back on, if I wasn’t able to get it in the town. Ye see, I didn’t dare take it all to the Utes at once, and didn’t want to. The most of it is in that cache now, in bottles.” “Wow!” “How does it hit you?” “Great!” “My idea is this; and you can tell if it will work. Give enough of that stuff of yours, in that whisky, to a lot of the warriors, and get them into a bloody humor; then make them think that Buffalo Bill’s crowd is out here to make trouble for ’em. It ought to send them out against Cody’s gang red-headed.” The apelike man gurgled what he probably thought was a laugh. “It’d do it.” “Then, the thing is easy. If the stuff will do that we can simply wipe that crowd off the face of the earth.” Gorilla Jake stood up and looked across the rocky land. “How fur is it to that whisky cache? Seems to me I’d like a drink myself. But with no dope in it; none o’ that dope fer me!” “The cache isn’t far from the Ute village.” “If the reds has found it thar’ll be an empty cache when we git thar.” “I don’t think they could find it.” “I reckon we ought to be movin’ out of this. If I understood you, after Cody’s crowd put that woman back into the stage they’re likely to come this way, follerin’ our trails.” “They’re sure to.” He stepped farther out, still looking about.