Stanley shook his head. "It is all wrong. They never should have sent you out here alone," he declared brusquely. "These superintendents seem to think they are railroading in Ohio instead of the Rocky Mountains. Dave," he continued, turning to Hawk as the latter came up, "I hear you have just brought in Perry dead. What have we got here, anyway?" "Some of the Medicine Bend gang," returned Hawk tersely. "What are they doing?" "Evening up old scores, I guess." Stanley looked at the dead man as they laid him out on the platform: "And hastening their own day of reckoning," he said. "There shall be no more of this if we have to drive every man of the gang out of the country. Who do you think was with Perry, Bob?" he demanded, questioning Scott. "There is nothing to show that till we get them--and we ought to be after them now," returned the scout. "But," he added softly as he hitched his trousers, "I think one of the two might be young John Rebstock." "You need lose no time, Bob. Here are ten men with fresh horses at your orders." Stanley pointed to the troopers who were unloading their mounts. "Give Dave and me three of the best of these men," said Scott. "I will follow the west trail. Put a sergeant with the others on the trail east to make sure they haven't doubled back on us--but I don't think they have." "Why?" "They must have stolen that team and wagon, that is certain. More than likely they murdered the man they took it from. The trail is probably alive with men looking for them. These fellows were trying to get to Casement's camp for gambling, and probably they are heading that way fast now. We will pick those fellows up, colonel, somewhere between here and Bridger's Gap." The three troopers that Scott selected were told off and, after a few rapid arrangements for sending back information, the five men of the west-trail party, headed by Scott and Dave Hawk, rode down Bitter Creek and, scattering in a wide skirmish line wherever the formation of the country permitted, scanned the ground for signs of the fugitives. "We shan't find anything till we get to where they were when the rain stopped," Scott told the trooper near whom he was riding. It was, in fact, nearly ten miles from Point of Rocks before they picked up the footprints of two men travelling apart from each other, but headed north and west. These they followed on a long détour away from the regular wagon road until the two trails turned and entered, from the southwest, a camp made the night before by a big trading outfit on the regular overland trail.