On the third day after the robbery, Sheriff Walt Borrow gave up and wired Austin.  On the fifth day, late in the afternoon, a rider swung down at the hitch-rail in front of the saloon.  Leaving the roan standing three-legged at the rail, he passed the saloon and went into the sheriff's office next door.

The rider was a young man, lean, and broad in the shoulders.  Watchers glimpsed a hard brown face, wide at the cheekbones, a firm straight mouth, and a strong jaw.  But it was the rider's eyes that stopped those who saw him face-on.  They were intensely black, their gaze level and measuring.  There was something about his eyes that made men uneasy, with a tendency to look quickly away.

"Looks like an Indian," Bishop commented.  "Reminds me of Victorio, the Apache.  I seen him once."

"I know him," Hardy Young said.  "By sight, anyway.  He's a Ranger from the Guadalupes."

Within the hour everybody within a radius of five miles knew that Ranger Chick Bowdrie was in town.  What they did not know was that the saddle tramp who loafed in the Longhorn Saloon was Rip Coker, also a Texas Ranger.

Coker had drifted into town the day before, a grim, blond young man looking down-at-heel and broke.  He let it be known that he was down to his last few dollars and ready for anything.  With his horse for a stake he sat in a poker game and won enough for eating money.  Most of the time he was Just around, drinking a beer now and again and keeping his eyes and ears open.

The story of the robbery was being told around.  Outlaws had hit the Bank of Kimble just before daylight to the tune of forty thousand dollars, and as Hardy Young commented to John Bishop, "That's a nice tune!"

Awakening as they did each morning, the townspeople had no idea what had taken place until Mary Phillips stopped Sheriff Borrow as he passed the Phillips home en route to breakfast and asked him to look for Josh.

"Ain't he to home, ma'am?"  Borrow was mildly surprised.  He had no idea that bankers got up so early.

"Somebody came to the door just before daylight and Josh answered it.  He called back to me that he would be back in a minute, then he stepped out and I heard the door close.  I dropped off to sleep and when I awakened he was still gone.  That isn't like him."

Walt Borrow was undisturbed until he saw the bank's door ajar.  Pushing it wider, he found Josh Phillips lying in a welter of gore, and the banker just managed to gasp out a few words before he died.

"Forced me!" he gasped, and lifted a hand horribly blackened by fire.  "Threatened to burn... Mary, too!"

A question from Borrow elicited a few words.

"Strangers!  A... hawk..."  His voice broke and he struggled for words.  "Red!"

The town was enraged, but the rage was tempered by wonder, for there were no tracks, and nobody seemed to have seen anything.  The outlaws had come and gone unseen, unheard.  Only the body of Josh Phillips, the safe they forced him to_ open, and the forty thousand missing dollars proved their visit.