Down upon Alder, exactly at midnight, had ridden a cavalcade headed by that notorious, half-legendary man-slayer, Dan Barry--Whistling Dan.

While his crew of two-score hardened ruffians held the doors and the windows with leveled rifles, Barry had entered with a gun and a wolf--a wild wolf, and had butchered ten men, wantonly.

To add to the mystery, there was no motive of robbery for the crime.

One sweeping visitation of death, and then the night-riders had rushed away.

Nor was this all, for Sheriff Pete Glass, hearing of the tragedy, had ridden to Rickett, the county seat, and from this strategic point of vantage he was sending out a call for the most practised fighters on the mountain-desert.