Suddenly, not fifty yards ahead, a man scratched a match. The Ranger jerked his carbine up. Gently he kneed the stallion around, feeling, rather than seeing, that Johnson was doing likewise. There was no alarm while they moved back a hundred yards and slipped off their animals. “Let’s hitch the hawses an’ sneak up!” whispered Johnson. They returned to the point from which they had seen the flare of that match, the stocky deputy making no more sound than a shadow--than the Ranger himself. Then they halted, squatting on their heels, to listen. There was the sound of men moving, of horses, the hum of low-voiced, jerky conversation. “Late again!” a boyish voice complained. “Hell! You’d think we were passengers, Sam, way the dam’ railroad’s treating us!” “Don’t ye fret, Bub,” a harsh voice answered the youngster. “She’ll be a-ramblin’ along right soon. Ingineer, he’ll see that log an’ he’ll jerk her back onto her tail right suddent!” “Ever’body lined up?” inquired a pleasant voice--Bass’s, Ware’s Kid surmised. “Yuh-all know where yuh work?” As the voices answered in affirmative grunts, the Ranger began moving soundlessly to circle them to get nearer to the point where the train would stop. Johnson followed until they were squatting in a little open perhaps fifty feet from the track, sheltered by a fallen tree. “You-all was shore right!” breathed Johnson. “Wouldn’t be nowheres else in the world!” Minutes ticked off, then there was the sound of the train, far away. The rails before them began to hum. The train was upon robbers and officers with a roar. Came a frantic squealing of brakes and the scream of the whistle. The train had barely halted when there was a rattle of shots along the track. It was so dark that there was no clue to the robbers’ positions save the orange flames that stab-stabbed the night. Ware’s Kid was conscious that Johnson was gone from beside him. He wasted no time thinking of that, but ran crouched over up to the track, where he could fire at the robbers’ shot-flashes. From here he went into action with coldly precise fire from the carbine. “Who’s that dam’ jughead?” someone roared. Evidently, thought Ware’s Kid, he was believed to be some misguided member of the gang, firing into his own people. From between the cars came shots to answer the gang, now. It was pandemonium, there in the pitchy night, with the heavy roar of Colts and the sharp, whiplike reports of rifles. A man could but guess, by the relative positions of the flashes, at whom he shot. The Ranger hardly expected to do much execution--his position made that a matter of chance. But he was worrying the Bass men. Suddenly a high, clear voice rang out, crying a name over and over again, penetrating even the staccato din of the firing. “Simp Dunbar! Where you-all? Simp Dunbar----”