The imposing Wind River Range of the Rockies saw-toothed the sky behind them, and smaller ranges encircled them. Much of the basin was a broad expanse of sage and greasewood bushes—and a bushwhacker’s paradise. In places the sagebrush was tall enough to conceal a standing man. Years of scouting dangerous country had taught both men a hair-trigger alertness that was as habitual as breathing. So far, tracking the trio of attackers proved easier than rolling off a log. They had taken no pains to obscure their trail, and the hoof depressions in the lush grass—overlapping often, the sign of a gallop—proved their greatest concern was fast escape, not concealment. “As long as we can see all three sets of those tracks,” Fargo remarked about an hour after they rode out from the work camp, “we don’t have to worry about being dry-gulched.” “Ahuh,” Buckshot agreed. “Seen any featherheads yet?” “Nope. But you know how it is with Bronze John—we’ll see him only when he wants us to.
