The former scout's alibi couldn't be shaken. The authorities had to release him. He immediately rode on to Cheyenne, threw a ten day drinking spree and dropped some very strong hints among friends.

``Dead center at three hundred yards, that coroner said!'' he'd grin. ``Three shots in that fella' fore he hit the ground! You reckon there's two men in this state can shoot like that?''

Publicly, he denied everything. Privately, he created and magnified an image of himself as a hired assassin. For a blood chilling ring of terror to the very sound of his name was the tool he needed for the job he'd promised to do.

Tom Horn was soon back at work, giving his secret employers their money's worth. A good many beef hungry settlers were accepting the death of William Lewis as proof that the warning notes were not idle threats. The company herds were being raided less often, and cabins and soddies all over the range were standing deserted. But there were other homesteaders who passed the Lewis murder off as a personal grudge killing, the work of one of his neighbors. The rustling problem was by no means solved.

Even in the very area where the shooting had been done, cattle were still disappearing. For less than a dozen miles from the unplowed land of the dead man lived another settler who had ignored the warnings that his existence might be foreclosed on -- a blatant and defiant rustler named Fred Powell.