Bucks broke the ash from his cigar into the tray on the table. "You are restless to-night, Gordon--and it isn't like you, either." "It is in the air. There has been a dead calm for two days. Something is due to happen to-night. I wish I could hear from Banks; he started with the papers for Sinclair's yesterday while I went to Oroville to sweat Karg. Blood-poisoning has set in and it is rather important to us to get a confession. There's a horse!" He stepped to the window. "Coming fast, too. Now, I wonder--no, he's gone by." Five minutes later a messenger came to the car from the Wickiup with word that Kennedy was looking for Whispering Smith. Bucks, McCloud, and Smith left the car together and walked up to McCloud's office. Kennedy, sitting on the edge of the table, was tapping his leg nervously with a ruler. "Bad news, Gordon." "Not from Ed Banks?" "Sinclair got him this morning." Whispering Smith sat down. "Go on." "Banks and I picked up Wickwire on the Crawling Stone early, and we rode over to the Frenchman. Wickwire said Sinclair had been up at Williams Cache the day before, and he didn't think he was home. Of course I knew the Cache was watched and he wouldn't be there long, so Ed asked me to stay in the cottonwoods and watch the creek for him. He and Wickwire couldn't find anybody home when they got to the ranch-house and they rode down the corral together to look over the horses." Whispering Smith's hand fell helplessly on the table. "Rode down together! For God's sake, why didn't _one_ of them stay at the house?" "Sinclair rode out from behind the barn and hit Wickwire in the arm before they saw him. Banks turned and opened on him, and Wickwire ducked for the creek. Sinclair put a soft bullet through Banks's shoulder--tore it pretty bad, Gordon--and made his get-away before Wickwire and I could reach the barn again. I got Ed on his horse and back to Wickwire's, and we sent one of the boys to Oroville for a doctor. After Banks fell out of the saddle and was helpless Sinclair talked to him before I came up. 'You ought to have kept out of this, Ed,' he said. 'This is a railroad fight. Why didn't they send the head of their own gang after me?'--naming you." Kennedy nodded toward Whispering Smith. "Naming me." "Banks says, 'I'm sheriff of this county, and will be a long time yet!' I took the papers from his breast pocket," continued Kennedy. "You can see where he was hit." Kennedy laid the sheriff's packet on the table. Bucks drew his chair forward and, with his cigar between his fingers, picked the packet up and opened it. Kennedy went on: "Ed told Sinclair if he couldn't land him himself that he knew a man who could and would before he was a week older. He meant you, Gordon, and the last thing Ed told me was that he wanted you to serve the papers on Sinclair."