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“I reckon, pards,” observed Wild Bill, “that the girl is also at Phelps’.”

The scout nodded.

“That it seems to me,” he answered, “is where she would be taken. Both prisoners, I think, would be kept in the same place.”

“But,” went on Wild Bill, “these barons realize that they’re playing a risky game. Phelps understands that, anyhow, for he said so in that scrap of writing which Benner had in his watch.”

The scout knotted his forehead over a detail of the situation which he could not fathom.

“Why,” he queried, “should Phelps write that note and hand it to Benner? They were together in Hackamore. Why did Phelps put such stuff on paper when he could have told it to Benner?”

“It was private business, Buffalo Bill,” suggested the sky pilot dryly, “so private that the barons did not dare speak about it in Hackamore.”

“Granted. The explanation is a little far-fetched, friend Jordan, but we’ll let it go. But why was Benner keeping the paper in his watch? One reading would have been enough for him, it seems to me. After getting the gist of the paper talk, it would have been safer for Benner to do with it what Wild Bill did afterwards—tear it up.”