“Jest got a frog in my throat,” the trapper explained. “I’m tuck thet way et times.” The baron sucked silently at his long-stemmed pipe, and the expression of his face was as cast iron as he could make it. “It come to me,” the sheriff went on, “after I’d started fer this place, that maybe this fool on the mountain was into that game last night, instead of Juniper and Benson. Though at first I was sure it was them; and that they had done it more as a exhibition of clear sand than to git the money.” He studied the face of Buffalo Bill. “What’s your idea?” “That it was the work of Juniper Joe and Benson.” “Then you don’t credit the idea that the Fool o’ Folly Mountain may have turned the trick?” “I don’t.” “Do you think he’s giving the public a square deal? Don’t you think he is lyin’?” Buffalo Bill seemed to ponder this. “I’m interested in watching that fellow,” he said. “So, if you’ll just leave his case with me, it will be a favor.” The sheriff was glad enough to get it off his hands, he said; he had now so many irons in the fire that he was burning some of them. But he declared that in the end Buffalo Bill would discover that the Fool of Folly Mountain was playing a huge double game and profiting by it. “That’s the opinion of the town, is it?” the scout asked. “Nearly every one is comin’ round to that belief. So it wouldn’t surprise me if a mob marched up there some night and took him out and hung him. We’ve had too much hold-up work round hyer. And the town is sore over the way it was fooled by Benson and Juniper Joe. The people ain’t goin’ to be easy with the next feller that runs a bluff like that.” Buffalo Bill laughed. “I guess there never was a community more cleverly sold,” he remarked. “And they ain’t any notion o’ bein’ sold ag’in.” “Y’ cain’t blame ’em,” Nomad commented, as if he felt he ought to do some of the talking. “Even Buffler was tuck in complete.” “Budt only at fairst,” corrected the German, coming to the scout’s defense. “What I’m up hyer fer mainly,” said the sheriff, “is to git your idea of what move I’d better make. Juniper Joe and Benson are partners once more. What deviltry them two can’t hatch up when they’re together there’s no tellin’. They’ll shore go back to the road if they haven’t already. I’d like to lay ’em by the heels.” “The only thing that can be done for a time,” the scout answered, “aside from keeping up a continual watch, is to stop shipments of gold out of Blossom Range until they have been apprehended.” “Which would tie up the business of the camp,” Shepard objected. “But it’s better policy to keep the gold here than to lose it. Yet there is one other thing that can be done: that is to send such a strong guard with every stage that goes through that the road agents won’t dare hold it up.”