Activating the detonators simultaneously, Henry placed one in the center of the tent, 5 meters apart, then he ran at high speed out of the camp while counting in his heart.
After feeling like he had run for 12 seconds, Henry released two granite stones from his space, huddled behind the stones, and then covered his head with the thick oak table.
At this moment, someone was awakened by Henry's hurried footsteps, quickly crawled out of his sleeping bag in the tent, and tried to walk out of the tent, but that was as far as he got.
"Boom!" With a loud bang, the two satchels of explosives detonated simultaneously, and the high-pressure, high-temperature shockwave formed swept across the entire area at a speed of 6900 meters per second.
Henry, huddled behind the granite stones about a hundred meters away, felt the heat wave of the shockwave and some debris falling on his head.
The horses were startled and neighed loudly.
After the explosion subsided, Henry put away the granite stones and the oak table, and walked back to the explosion site.
The three bonfires were completely scattered, with only a dozen sporadic trees burning on the ground, and the five oil lamps were all broken and extinguished.
There was no one standing in the entire area; most people had their souls scattered while still in their dreams.
Only a mere 5 people were still moaning, 4 of whom were clearly not going to make it, and only one was still struggling, a middle-aged Spanish man with a hooked nose.
When collecting the people in the sleeping bags earlier, Henry noticed that this gang was all Spanish.
The hooked-nosed man's left side of his body was severely burned, his left cheek was severely chapped and everted from the burns, and his left arm was limp, presumably broken.
There were also two wounds that almost cut across his body, suggesting severe bone and internal organ damage inside his body.
The hooked-nosed man was only struggling unconsciously; his entire consciousness should have been in a daze, with no reaction even when Henry walked up to him.
"Who are you, and why did you ambush me?" Henry asked coldly.
In the faint firelight, most of him was hidden in the darkness, as if an emissary of the abyss had descended upon the human world.
The hooked-nosed man did not react.
It was already 5:18 AM, and it would be completely light in about ten minutes, too late to search for the second gang under the cover of night.
Henry ignored the hooked-nosed man, took out three oil lamps from his space and lit them, placing them in three directions about seven or eight meters away from him, and then searched them one by one.
Then Henry also took out the thirty-two bodies he had just collected from his Storage Space and searched them one by one.
By the time this was done, more than half an hour had passed.
By then, it was already fully light, and the hooked-nosed man and the other four bandits were completely silent.
The release life progress bar had 2 more green beads, 31 white beads, and 37 gray beads added to it.
Only one of the green beads had a skill or talent aura.
Henry matched the number of bodies he had searched and knew that all 70 bandits here had been released to the Yellow Springs.
Besides some daggers, guns, and ammunition, the only special item was a wooden cylinder—about 3 centimeters in diameter and 30 centimeters long—in the arms of a prone, half-white bearded man.
After Henry unscrewed the cylinder, he found two leather maps inside, with some drawings and hieroglyphs-like things on them, very similar to what he had previously taken from that swindler Louis.
Then Henry put the two maps together and found that one piece was still missing—the one that was on Louis.
Now, the entire map was reassembled into a complete one.
Henry found that although he didn't understand the characters at all, he knew that this should point to Arizona, as a distinctive drawing on it was very obvious—the hill that looked like a monument.
He put all three maps into the wooden cylinder and stored them in his Storage Space, planning to study them later when he had time.
It seemed that this group of robbers had targeted him because of this map, probably in league with that swindler assassin Louis.
Finally, Henry walked to the 70 horses.
If he were to take all 70 horses, his space would not be enough; he would have to release at least 60 of the dead horses he had previously collected.
There was no other way; they all had saddles, so the live horses were definitely more important.
In America in those days, there was no custom of eating horse meat; dead horses were basically sent to tanneries and were not worth much, not even one us dollar per dead horse.
Henry released all 100-plus dead horses, and then integrated 70 gray bead empty shells to take these 70 horses into his space.
Since it was already fully light, Henry simply spent over an hour dismounting the saddles from the 100-plus dead horses and storing them in his Storage Space.
Saddles were often more expensive than horses, some even costing over 100 us dollars per set; whether for equipping his private cavalry later or selling them, they were very valuable.
Now Henry had 190 warhorses in his space.
If a warhorse's nutrition was to be maintained daily, its monthly feed cost would be at least about 10 us dollars, equivalent to an ordinary person's monthly salary.
Therefore, many people in this era could afford to buy horses but could not afford to keep them.
For 190 warhorses, calculating based on one gray bead empty shell lasting about 2160 hours, or 3 months, it would save at least 5700 us dollars, and also eliminate risks such as labor, management, and disease.
Next, after a simple meal and drink, Henry continued to scout other easily ambushed locations along the Hangman's Hill section.
Another hour passed, and Henry finally finished scouting most of the dangerous ambush points, finding nothing else.
So he walked onto the mountain road, took out a horse, and rode back to his camp.
When Henry returned to the camp, it was already 9:16 AM, and everyone had packed up.
Henry had been gone for so long that the people at the camp guessed he had encountered another ambushing gang of bandits.
Seeing Henry finally return, everyone cheered excitedly again.
"There were 70 bandits at Hangman's Hill attempting to ambush us, and I eliminated them all. We are departing now. Hank, you are responsible for driving the hardtop buggy, and Charles and Owen will scout ahead." Henry arranged everything one by one.
Everyone started moving, preparing to depart.
Henry and another ranch-born police officer, Wharton, each rode two horses.
—
At the McKinley Manor in Denver, Brendan had just received a telegram from Barak, a commissioner in Fresco Town, informing him that Richard had not yet arrived in the town.
This made Brendan very annoyed, as there were too many reasons for such a situation.
Richard and his group might have been ambushed by a large gang of bandits, or they might have encountered Henry and his group and engaged in a fight, or they might have encountered obstacles like flash floods or landslides.
As for Henry and his group being able to wipe out all 31 of his men plus Richard's 6 guards, Brendan now felt it was possible, but the probability was low.
After all, Henry's achievements were only on paper to him; they weren't as vivid and profound as witnessing them firsthand.
He had great confidence in the combat quality of his family's cavalry, which was not comparable to ordinary rabble.
For the past two days, regarding the matters at Dwyer Manor and the smelter, Brendan had always believed that the Sinclair Family had deployed a large private armed force to counter his family's properties, and Henry was at most the leading thug among them.
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