midnight
As he called out , a rifle cracked from the box-elder trees ahead of him . The sheriff fell , shot through the head , and a deputy springing from his saddle to pick him up was shot in precisely the same way , through the head . The riderless horses bolted ; the posse , thrown into a panic , did not fire a shot , and for an hour dared not ride back for the bodies . After dark they got the two dead men and at midnight rode with them into Sleepy Cat . When the news reached McCloud he was talking with Bucks over the wires . Bucks had got into headquarters at the river late that night , and was getting details from McCloud of the Sugar Buttes robbery when the superintendent sent him the news of the killing of Van Horn and the deputy . In the answer that Bucks sent came a name new to the wires of the mountain division and rarely seen even in special correspondence , but Hughie Morrison , who took the message , never forgot that name ; indeed , it was soon to be thrown sharply into the spotlight of the mountain railroad stage .