“Everything indicates that Benson cached a lot of whisky here, which he has used from time to time in influencing the Utes; and that this last Ute outbreak was caused by it. If so, it occurs to me that he will come back here soon for more of it. Now that he has started in, he will have to keep the Utes drunk in order to control them; otherwise, they might sober up, get scared over what they have done, and be ready to make peace and surrender him. He has got to block that; and to do it he must get more whisky. He will come for it here.” “Right ye air, Buffler!” said Nomad. “Which means ’et we kin lay fer him right hyer, and rake him in when he does come.” “Jest so,” said Bill Betts. “And if Gorilla Jake comes with him, why, I kin rake him in. Me and Brother Jim is after that reward.” The bottles lay on the ground, an imposing array. “Enough to stock up a barroom,” said Betts, eying them covetously. “Thar ain’t any reason, gents, why we can’t jest shift this cache; and, then, when we go to the town, take the stuff with us and sell it thar. Whisky will sell in a town like Blossom Range, when nothin’ else would, and it allus brings good prices. We c’d divvy on the stakes.” Buffalo Bill was mentally shaping up another plan. “As I said,” he remarked, “Benson will have to keep the Utes intoxicated in order to manipulate them. But suppose he fails to do so?” “Then he’ll bust,” said Betts, who was busily engaged in reckoning up the value of the whisky, marking in the sand and using a sliver of rock for a pencil. “K’rect!” commented Nomad, bending over him; but whether Nomad meant to approve the idea or agreed with the result of Bill Betts’ figures was not apparent. “Suppose,” said the scout, “that some of the Indians should be with Benson when he comes to get the remainder of his whisky here?” “Wow! We c’d rake ’em all in!” Nomad cried, looking up. “But if we happened not to be right here, what would happen?” “Why, we wouldn’t rake ’em in,” Nomad admitted. “I see you don’t get my idea. It is just this: The Indians would be angered, perhaps would think Benson had fooled them; then things would look bad for Benson.” “He might trail to the other cache, and show the Utes jest what had been done, and so save himself; for the Utes couldn’t blame him, when they saw how it had happened,” said Betts. “I wanted to bring you round to that,” the scout confessed, “so that perhaps you would agree with my ideas on the subject. My suggestion is that we empty out this whisky and fill the bottles with water from the stream over there; then restore them to the cache!” “Waugh!” Nomad blurted, but not in approval. “Throw away all this good and vallyble whisky?” cried Betts. “It isn’t ours to sell in the first place,” argued the scout; “but if we can accomplish something we will take it anyway, and drain it out into the sand. Considering the use it is being put to, we have ample justification.” “But----” began Betts.