``I'll be ready next time!'' he raged. ``I'll be shootin' right back.''

He had his chance the very next morning, for exactly the same thing happened again. This time Lewis had his own rifle in his hands, and he threw some answering fire back at the mysterious far-off shot, then spent most of the day searching out the area. He found nothing, but he still refused to give up and move out.

``Just let me meet up with that damned bushwhackin' coward face-to-face!'' he exploded. ``That's all I ask!''

He never got that chance. For the unseen, ghostlike rifleman aimed a little higher the third time. A.30-30 bullet smashed directly into the center of William Lewis' chest. He slumped against a log fence rail, then tried to lift himself. Two more shots followed in quick succession, dropping him limp and huddled on the ground.

An inquest was held, and after a good deal of testimony about the anonymous notes, the county coroner estimated that the shooting had been done from a distance of 300 yards. Rumors of the offer Tom Horn had made at the Stockgrowers' Association meeting had leaked out by then, and as a grand jury investigation of the murder got underway, the prosecuting attorney, a Colonel Baird, ordered that the tall stock detective be summoned for questioning.

It took some time to locate Horn. He was finally found in the Bates Hole region of Natrona County, two counties away. Prosecutor Baird immediately assumed he was hiding out there after the shooting and began preparing an indictment. But that indictment was never made. For Tom Horn, it turned out, had a number of rancher and cowboy witnesses ready and willing to swear with straight faces that he had been in Bates Hole the day of the killing.