Trains are the fastest and most tireless means of transportation in this era.

As long as there are railroad tracks laid under its steel wheels, even if the destination is the end of the earth, even if it needs to cross mountains and rivers along the way, it can send its passengers to their destination in the most modern way and at the most modern speed of this era.

For the United States, the continuous extension of railroads and the continuous maturity and progress of train technology have promoted the exploration and exploitation of the vast undeveloped areas of the country by Americans, who were once guests but are now masters and predators, and promoted the progress and development of civilization.

For the ordinary people living in this land, the most intuitive convenience brought by the emergence and development of the train is that the place that may have taken a long time to reach in the past can now be reached smoothly with less money and time.

Take the journey from New Hanover to West Elizabeth, for example, or, to be more precise, from Valentine to Strawberry Town, if you use the traditional method, even the fastest stagecoach takes two days, and you have to travel day and night, and if you ride a horse, the most commonly used riding horse in the five states, the Kentucky horse, it will take at least four days to cover this journey, and if you are a less inferior horse, it will take you longer.

If you take the train, although Strawberry Town is not connected by train, if you take the train, get off at the Riggs station, the closest to Strawberry Town, and then change to a stagecoach or horseback ride, it will only take more than a day to reach your destination at most, and you don't need to refuel the train in between. This may be the convenience of life brought by civilized society.

And trains are safer than traditional horses and wagons, because the average thief would not dare to touch these behemoths running along the rails, and in the field, anyone who knows how to shoot, even if he has an old revolver that is not calibrated and maintained, will be transformed into a vicious cutter bandit.

In the early morning, a steam locomotive with a beautiful interior is speeding along the railway loop connecting the four states of New Hanover, West Elizabeth, Ambrino and Lemon.

In the carriage, there are many passengers, they are of different ages and identities, and the only thing they have in common may be that they have either left their homeland or traveled home.

The gray-bearded, middle-aged flight attendant who was about to enter old age walked the aisles of the carriage, checking the tickets of every passenger, a job he had repeated for decades, and he believed that he would continue to do so in the next three to five years.

When he walked up to a young cowboy who was reading the latest issue of the New Hanover Bulletin, he saw that the cowboy had not taken out the ticket, so he reminded him, "Sir, the ticket."

The young cowboy looked up, took out a narrow ticket from the pocket of his black pants, handed it to the flight attendant, and asked, "Excuse me, how long is it until Riggs Station?"

"Once the train crosses the bridge across Bard, it'll be there in another four or five minutes." The flight attendant replied.

The cowboy nodded, ready to continue reading the newspaper.

At this moment, a slightly snarky mocking voice of a middle-aged man came from opposite him: "Is this the first time you are on this train? Young people?"

Cowboy looked up and saw a middle-aged man in an old suit sitting directly across from him smiling at him, and replied, "Yes, sir, do you have any advice?"

"I guess that's it," said the middle-aged man with a smile, "and this train does pass Riggs Station, yes, but it won't stop there, because it's an express interstate train, and it won't stop at a small station like that, but only at a train station in or near town, which is one of the reasons why it's fast, and if it does, it will only stop at Annisberg."

At this point, the middle-aged man leaned in slightly and said, "But you don't have to worry about anything, it happens that you take the wrong train from time to time, and then you can change trains again, anyway, no matter what, it is faster than riding a horse and taking a stagecoach." I often travel around on the train, and I hear me say that the next time you want to get off at Riggs Station, you have to take another train that is relatively old and has fewer carriages, and that train is just a station.

As long as that platform isn't abandoned, it stops."

The young cowboy looked at the middle-aged man for a moment, then looked up at a thick rope hanging from the top of the ceiling of the carriage, smiled, and said, "This car will stop at Riggs Station." After that, I went back to reading the newspaper.

The middle-aged man was about to say anything more, when suddenly, noticing the belt of the young cowboy's waist and the handle of the rifer he was attached, and suddenly realized that he had better remain silent, so he lowered his head and focused on the thick book he had been reading.

The train roared, wheels spun rapidly, and the black-and-gray steam billowed overhead as it drove up the Bard Crossing Bridge that spanned the Dakota River.

The whistle, smoke and wheels of the train startled away all sorts of birds that were still hovering near the tracks and on the railings next to them, and even the white-tailed deer drinking on the riverside under the bridge scattered.

However, they will be back soon, as it only takes two or three minutes for the train to cross the bridge.

As the rear of the train left the bridge, the young cowboy stood up from his seat, his already tall stature even taller in the current relatively low train car.

He raised his hand to grasp the thick rope that hung from the top of the carriage, pulled hard, and then the alarm bell sounded.

The alarm bell rang, and almost the entire train was disrupted by the movement.

When the train driver heard the bell, he immediately braked urgently, hoping to stop the train at full speed in the shortest possible time.

The sudden emergency braking also made the passengers on the train panic, and the flight attendant controlled his body to prevent him from being thrown to the ground by the strong inertia of the train, while shouting to comfort the passengers, trying to tell everyone to sit still and not panic.

The train came to a steady stop at Riggs Station, and passengers poked their heads out of their windows to figure out what was going on.

The gray-bearded conductor jumped off the train and shouted at the front of the train in some rage, "What's wrong? Why do you suddenly have to make an emergency stop?"

"I heard the alarm bell, and now I want to ask you what happened," the train driver shouted, "Didn't you pull the alarm bell?"

"I haven't even touched that rope," the flight attendant said with some confusion, "who pulled the alarm bell?"

As he asked the question, the doors of the train carriages for livestock and horses were opened, and a young cowboy wearing a black gambler's hat, a blue shirt, black trousers, and cowboy boots studded with silver spurs led a tall black horse out of the carriage and down to the platform.

The flight attendant immediately recognized it as the passenger who had asked him when the Riggs station would arrive. He immediately ran to the young cowboy and said, "Sir, you can't get out of the car this way, it's not behaving properly, it's even ......"

Speaking of this, the young cowboy turned around, and the flight attendant saw the revolver that the cowboy was equipped with at his waist, and his originally angry expression was immediately covered with a layer of horror, after all, in this world, people with guns are generally not easy to mess with.

"Or even?" The young cowboy asked, "What do you want to say?" Mr. Flight Attendant?"

"Well, I mean, if you really need it, we'll consider adding a stop here later." The flight attendant changed his tune almost immediately, and although he had lived a long time, he had not lived enough.

Cowboy looked at the flight attendant for a moment and said, "It's okay, I'm already there, thank you." After saying that, he led the horse and left the platform.

When the conductor saw the young cowboy gone, he immediately climbed onto the train as if he had run away, and shouted at the front of the train, "It's okay now, drive!" Let's drive!"

When the train driver heard this, he didn't care about anything else, and immediately began to operate, allowing the train to continue moving.

A man and a horse walked slowly on the road shaded by the trees, and after a short time, they came to a three-way intersection.

The young cowboy looked at the road in front of him pointing in two different directions, snorted a little in annoyance, took out a map from his trouser pocket that had been folded into small squares, unfolded it, and began to carefully study what to do next.

"Now

The question is, let's go to Strawberry Town to settle down first, or go to the direction of Camp Riggs to investigate the scene," Cowboy muttered to himself as he raised his head to observe the current sun, "Well, it's still early, even if you go to Camp Riggs to survey Fort Riggs, you can get to Strawberry Town before dark, so let's go to survey the scene first, but I can expect that the scene is estimated to have been destroyed a long time ago, but it would be good to find even a remnant of the axle."

After calculating where to go, the cowboy folded the map as it was, put it in his pocket, climbed on the horse's back, and clamped his feet in the belly of the horse, and the black horse of the divine horse neighed, and ran in the direction of the Riggs camp in a whirlwind.

The young cowboy who forced the train to stop with the help of the train alarm bell was none other than Brandi, who had left Valentine yesterday afternoon.

Because of the long distance, in order to gain time and carry out the investigation as early as possible, he chose the train, the most modern means of transportation, but it was indeed negligence, he only wanted to be fast, ignoring the type of train itself, and directly bought a ticket for the express train.

However, fortunately, he was in a hurry, remembering that he seemed to have seen the operation of forcibly getting off the train by sounding the alarm bell in an old movie in his previous life, so he immediately concocted the same method, and it worked, but this method, if he could, Brandi didn't want to use it a second time.

Fort Riggs, an abandoned military camp north of the upper Montana River, was a concentration camp for Native Americans decades ago where tens of thousands of Indians were tortured and thousands of Americans who coveted government bounties had their hands covered in blood.

There are different opinions as to why it was abandoned. Some say it was because of the division of Indian reservations and changes in Indian policy; Some say that it is because of the cruel revenge of the blood-thirsty Indian savages; And many more say that it was just a mistake that caused the fire.

It is said that to this day, in an era when Strawberry Town, which is less than five miles from the ruins, has become a famous tourist town throughout the country, if you stay alone at night in the ruins of the ruins where the structure of the houses still intact, you can still faintly hear the cries and cries for help of the Indians who were once inhumanly tortured here, which is chilling.

It's just that not many people believe this kind of mystical statement, especially those murderous outlaws, some of whom even peeled off the scalps of the Indians with their own hands, and the screams that almost broke through the eardrums at that time were not much more shocking than the voices that those superstitious people who believed in ghosts and gods hallucinated under the psychological effect, not to mention the fear of those ethereal things, so now, although this place has been abandoned for a long time, there are always some suspicious characters who are difficult to distinguish between good and evil.

In Brandi's personal speculation, since the goods were looted near Fort Riggs, then Fort Riggs must have important clues, assuming that there was someone hiding there, then this person would at least be a potential witness, even if there was no one, there is a high probability that Fort Riggs was once occupied by robbers, and since it was occupied, even if it was several days later, there is a high probability that it will leave enough traces to track.

But now, standing in front of him on the jumbled ground of Camp Riggs' Fort with a mess of broken timber, under the eaves of the only building in the area that maintained the shape of a house, three tramp-like cowboys stood before him, looking at him with blank expressions.

"So," Brandy's eyes were always locked on the trio's every move, after all, their gun belts and the revolvers at their waists were real, "how much do you know about what I'm talking about?"

"Who are you?" One of the homeless cowboys sneered and said nonchalantly, "Why should we tell you what we saw that day?"

"It doesn't matter who I am, but I'm sure you know the Indians on these sheets." Brandi said, pulling out three five-dollar bills from his pocket and casually displaying them in front of the three men.

The eyes of the three immediately straightened. After all, for ordinary people living in this country, especially poor cowboys like them who have no place to live and no one to rely on, a one-dollar bill is a rare luxury, let alone a brand new five-dollar bill.

One of them was a little interested in getting rich, and stretched out a hand to touch the cloth

The banknotes in Randy's hand, but as soon as his fingers touched the silky paper, the three brand-new banknotes with the busts of the Indian chieftain slid through his fingertips.

Brandi put the money back in his pocket, looked at the three pairs of greedy eyes, Brandi smiled slightly, and said, "As long as you tell me what you know, all this money is yours, how about it?"

The three of them looked at each other, and then laughed. One quickly pulled out his revolver from his waist and sneered, "Then if we just rob you, or simply kill you, won't we be able to get more tickets than that fifteen dollars?"

Brandi glanced at the muzzle of the gun aimed at him, shook his head slightly, sighed, raised his hands, and said, "Okay, okay, you guys succeeded, which I really didn't expect."

Brandy's simple surrender sparked laughter from the three homeless cowboys.

"Reminder, young cowboy," the man with the gun laughed as he stepped forward and reached into Brandi's trouser pocket and began to fumble, "out there, don't show your wealth casually, it's going to end badly."

"Thank you for the reminder, but, I suppose, I have to remind you of one thing too," as soon as the words fell, Brandi jerked his leg, and the body of the person who came to pick his pocket immediately became unbalanced, Brandi took this opportunity, raised his hand and snatched the gun from the man's hand, and pulled the man into his arms, restrained the man with one hand, and put the gun against the man's temple with the other, "It's better to wait for the target to lose his resistance, and then go through his pocket."

The other two panicked and hurriedly touched the gun, but Brandi shot directly into the sky and said, "Don't move, move, I'll make a hole in your partner."

The hands of the two men touching the guns immediately froze.

Brandi smiled again and said, "Now, tell me what I want to know, except that you've lost the chance to get paid for it."

"Don't move, don't move," shouted the man who was restrained by Brandy, his voice trembling with fear, "Damn, what are you talking about? Three days ago, or four days ago, did you see any convoys or robberies around here?"

The other two looked at each other again, and their eyes were full of confusion.

But in the next second, there will only be confusion in the eyes of the two of them.

Two gunshots rang out from behind Brandy, and the two people in front of him immediately had a deep gun hole in their eyebrows, and the confusion in their eyes was even greater, and it seemed that they were dazed by the sudden attack, but before they could see the direction of the bullet, their bodies fell to the ground softly, and their consciousness fell into darkness forever.

Encountering an unexpected situation, Brandi did not hesitate, pushed the man he restrained hard, twisted his body, and quickly pulled out the revolver on his waist with his other hand, and stood on his side, his hands in front of him, one behind the other, and aimed at the homeless cowboy in front of him and the unknown gunman behind him.

"It's you, I thought it was Arthur," a familiar voice came from behind him, "Don't be nervous, your own people."

Brandi looked back to see that Mica and Lenny were standing behind him, the muzzle of Mika's double-action revolver pointing upwards, and a little black smoke curling out of it.

"Is that you?" Brandi retracted his revolver into its holster, while the other gun was pointed at the last of the tramp-like cowboys, and he glanced at Lenny and Mika, who had automatically walked to his side, and asked, "Why did you come to West Elizabeth?"

"I consciously applied here to try my luck and see if I could make some extra money, and you know, we still need money now," Maika said, glancing at Lenny and said, "As for that black boy, it was the boss who gave it to me, what did he say to help me keep my cool, hmph, when do I need a black imp to point fingers?"

Lenny interrupted Maika's insulting words with a gun and a stick and asked Brandy, "Are you healed?" Why did you run over here, and you still play a game of robbing and kidnapping each other with this kind of person?"

Brandi immediately told the two of them why he was here.

"Oh, it turned out that old lady businessman asked you to come, and he really made people," Mika suddenly realized,

"But to be honest, you really don't have enough time to find out the news."

"I'll be able to ask in a moment," Brandi argued, "and you shot and killed two people who might have given me important clues."

"Since the three of them are together, it will be enough to keep one alive," Mika said indifferently, "and, little cowboy, you may know how to extract information from civilized people, but that set will not only not work for this kind of thing, but will encourage them to become hostile."

"I didn't expect you to have a knack for that," Brandi smiled disdainfully, made a "please" gesture, and said, "Well, you're so good, you come and ask."

Maika smiled coldly, and did not answer, but stepped forward, the revolver in his hand dangling, and the muzzle of the gun almost lit up and down the body of the man who fell to the knee.

"Eh, boy," said Maika, crouching down and plucking the man's jaw with her gun, "Tell me, was there anything interesting about carriages or carriage convoys here three or four days ago?"

The man's body trembled like chaff, but he couldn't say a word.

Maika didn't talk nonsense and went straight to the countdown.

"Five."

"Four."

"Three."

"I say, I say, don't count," the man shouted, "Three days ago, a convoy of two wagons was hijacked here, and the carjackers were very good marksmans, or they used sniper rifles, anyway, they killed the coachman and the guards on board, then fought hard with the other guards, and then drove the two wagons away before the police from Strawberry Town arrived." jj.br>

"Where did the carriage go?" Brandi asked.

"I don't know," the man shook his head, "and the gunfight was very fierce, and the police came in the back, and I was the only one at the time, and my two companions, the two who are now on the ground, had gone hunting on the other side of the river, so they weren't there, and I didn't dare to show my head, and when the police left, I couldn't see anything anymore."

"So, what do you think of the carjacking bandits? For example, facial features?" Brandi then asked.

"Those people are either masked with black cloth, or they have sacks on their heads that have their eyes cut out, so they can't see clearly, and their clothes are a little better than mine, and they can't see the calendar." The man replied hurriedly.

At this moment, the gunshots rang out again, and the sound of the last homeless cowboy came to an abrupt end.

"What are you doing?" Brandi was a little angry, he hadn't finished asking.

"Waste of time," Mika said, puffing out the black smoke from the muzzle of the gun, "this man obviously doesn't know how to ask any questions, and no matter how many questions you ask, it's useless."

Lenny whispered to the side, "Okay, Brandy, don't be angry with him, you don't know what he is."

Brandi slammed the tattered revolver in his hand to the ground with all his might, and did not speak.

Maika was a little amused when she saw Brandy's appearance, and looked up in the direction they had come, only to see a petite figure riding on a pony that was slightly smaller than the average horse, galloping briskly towards this direction.

"Yo ho," Mika said, as if she had noticed something interesting, "Brandi, you must not have imagined what I saw."

"What good things can you see, Melina and Lani's portraits?" Brandi was sneering in her heart, and looked back in the direction that Maika was looking, and was suddenly a little dumbfounded.

Butty saw Marty, the little girl whom Brandi thought would be a little time before she saw again, riding a half-sized blood-colored thoroughbred, running towards them.