“Here’s the slow thinker that did it,” said Dick, clapping Bert on the shoulder.

“That’s the bonehead, sure enough,” echoed Tom.

“Oh, come off,” growled Bert, flushing a little and fidgeting uneasily in his seat.  “There was a whole lot of luck about it, anyway.  If we hadn’t had the paperweight, all the thinking in the world wouldn’t have done us a bit of good.”

“If you hadn’t had the thinking, all the paperweights in the world wouldn’t have done us a bit of good,” corrected Tom.

“Well, there’s glory enough for all,” smiled the conductor.  “The main point is that you fellows have put me and the company under a load of gratitude and obligation that we can never repay.  Call it quick thinking, quick acting, or both—­you turned the trick.”

“It had to be a case of ‘the quick or the dead,’” grinned Tom.

“Sure thing,” assented the conductor.  “You were the quick and those two rascals are the dead.  Or will be before long,” he added grimly.  “I’ll turn them over to the sheriff at the next station.  There’s a hand bill in the baggage car describing a band of outlaws that the authorities of three States have been after for a long time for robbery and murder, and two of the descriptions fit these fellows to a dot.  There’s a price on their heads, dead or alive, and I guess they’ve reached the end of their rope in more senses than one.”

He passed on and the boys relaxed in their seats.  They were still under the nervous strain of the stirring scene in which they had been the chief actors.  Tom’s breath was coming fast and his eyes were shining.

Bert looked at him for a moment and then nudged Dick.

“Didn’t I hear some one say a little while ago,” he asked slyly, “that in this little old United States there was too much civilization?”

“Yes,” replied Dick, still quoting, “nothing ever happens nowadays.”

CHAPTER II

The Ranch in the Rockies

With a great roar and rattle and clangor of bells, the train drew up at the little station where the boys were to descend.  Their long rail journey of nearly three thousand miles was over, but they still had a forty-mile drive before they would reach the ranch.

For a half hour previous they had been gathering their traps together and saying good-by to their friends on the train.  These last included all of the travelers, who, since the capture of the robbers, had insisted on making heroes of the boys.  In vain they had protested that the thanks were out of all proportion to the service rendered.  The passengers themselves knew better.  And it was amid a chorus of the friendliest farewells and good wishes that they had stepped to the rude platform of the station.

“Not much of a metropolis about this,” said Tom as they looked around.

“Hardly,” agreed Dick.  “The principal thing here is space.  You can cross the street without the help of a traffic cop.”