Arizona Nights .....................................................................................................................................................1

Stewart Edward White.............................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER ONE. THE OLE VIRGINIA................................................................................................1

CHAPTER TWO. THE EMIGRANTS...................................................................................................6

CHAPTER THREE. THE REMITTANCE MAN .................................................................................14

CHAPTER FOUR. THE CATTLE RUSTLERS..................................................................................24

CHAPTER FIVE. THE DRIVE............................................................................................................32

CHAPTER SIX. CUTTING OUT.........................................................................................................37

CHAPTER SEVEN. A CORNER IN HORSES ....................................................................................42

CHAPTER EIGHT. THE CORRAL BRANDING...............................................................................50

CHAPTER NINE. THE OLD TIMER..................................................................................................53

CHAPTER TEN. THE TEXAS RANGERS.........................................................................................55

CHAPTER ELEVEN. THE SAILOR WITH ONE HAND..................................................................56

CHAPTER TWELVE. THE MURDER ON THE BEACH ..................................................................61

CHAPTER THIRTEEN. BURIED TREASURE..................................................................................64

CHAPTER FOURTEEN. THE CHEWED SUGAR CANE.................................................................68

CHAPTER FIFTEEN. THE CALABASH STEW................................................................................71

CHAPTER SIXTEEN. THE HONKHONK BREED.........................................................................73

PART II. THE TWO GUN MAN ..........................................................................................................79

CHAPTER ONE. THE CATTLE RUSTLERS .....................................................................................79

CHAPTER TWO. THE MAN WITH NERVE.....................................................................................81

CHAPTER THREE. THE AGREEMENT ............................................................................................83

CHAPTER FOUR. THE ACCOMPLISHMENT ..................................................................................86

PART III. THE RAWHIDE ..................................................................................................................88

CHAPTER ONE. THE PASSING OF THE COLT'S FORTYFIVE..................................................88

CHAPTER TWO. THE SHAPES OF ILLUSION ................................................................................90

CHAPTER THREE. THE PAPER A YEAR OLD...............................................................................92

CHAPTER FOUR. DREAMS ...............................................................................................................93

CHAPTER FIVE. THE ARRIVAL .......................................................................................................95

CHAPTER SIX. THE WAGON TIRE ..................................................................................................97

CHAPTER SEVEN. ESTRELLA.......................................................................................................100

CHAPTER EIGHT. THE ROUNDUP ..............................................................................................103

CHAPTER NINE. THE LONG TRAIL..............................................................................................104

CHAPTER TEN. THE DISCOVERY .................................................................................................106

CHAPTER ELEVEN. THE CAPTURE ..............................................................................................108

CHAPTER TWELVE. IN THE ARROYO .........................................................................................110

CHAPTER THIRTEEN. THE RAWHIDE.........................................................................................111

CHAPTER FOURTEEN. THE DESERT...........................................................................................112

The ring around the sun had thickened all day long, and the turquoise blue of the Arizona sky had filmed.

Storms in the dry countries are infrequent, but heavy; and this surely meant storm.

We had ridden since sunup over broad mesas, down and out of deep canons, along the base of the mountain

in the wildest parts of the territory. The cattle were winding leisurely toward the high country; the jack rabbits

had disappeared; the quail lacked; we did not see a single antelope in the open.

"It's a case of hole up," the Cattleman ventured his opinion. "I have a ranch over in the Double R. Charley

The four cowboys agreed. We dropped into a low, broad watercourse, ascended its bed to big cottonwoods

and flowing water, followed it into box canons between rimrock carved fantastically and painted like a

Moorish facade, until at last in a widening below a rounded hill, we came upon an adobe house, a fruit tree,

Charley and Windy Bill welcomed us with soda biscuits. We turned our horses out, spread our beds on the

floor, filled our pipes, and squatted on our heels. Various dogs of various breeds investigated us. It was very

A hawkfaced old man with a long white beard and long white hair rode out from the cottonwoods. He had

on a battered broad hat abnormally high of crown, carried across his saddle a heavy "eight square" rifle, and

The largest and fiercest of the latter, catching sight of our group, launched himself with lightning rapidity at

the biggest of the ranch dogs, promptly nailed that canine by the back of the neck, shook him violently a

score of times, flung him aside, and pounced on the next. During the ensuing few moments that hound was

the busiest thing in the West. He satisfactorily whipped four dogs, pursued two cats up a tree, upset the Dutch

oven and the rest of the soda biscuits, stampeded the horses, and raised a cloud of dust adequate to represent

the smoke of battle. We others were too paralysed to move. Uncle Jim sat placidly on his white horse, his thin

knees bent to the oxbow stirrups, smoking. In ten seconds the trouble was over, principally because there

was no more trouble to make. The hound returned leisurely, licking from his chops the hair of his victims.

Uncle Jim shook his head. "Trailer," said he sadly, "is a little severe." We greed heartily, and turned in to

welcome Uncle Jim with a fresh batch of soda biscuits. The old man was ne of the typical"long hairs." He

had come to the Galiuro Mountains in '69, and since '69 he had remained in the Galiuro Mountains, spite of

man or the devil. At present he possessed some hundreds of cattle, which he was reputed to water, in a dry

season, from an ordinary dishpan. In times past he had prospected. That evening, the severe Trailer having

dropped to slumber, he held forth on biggame hunting and dogs, quartz claims and Apaches. "Did you ever

He ruminated a few moments, refilled his pipe with some awful tobacco, and told the following experience:

In the time of Geronimo I was living just about where I do now; and that was just about in line with the

raiding. You see, Geronimo, and Ju [1], and old Loco used to pile out of the reservation at Camp Apache, raid

south to the line, slip over into Mexico when the soldiers got too promiscuous, and raid there until they got

ready to come back. Then there was always a big medicine talk. Says Geronimo: [1] Pronounced "Hoo."

"I am tired of the warpath. I will come back from Mexico with all my warriors, if you will escort me with

soldiers and protect my people." "All right," says the General, being only too glad to get him back at all. So,

then, in ten minutes there wouldn't be a buck in camp, but next morning they shows up again, each with about

"I can't take all those hosses with me; I believe they're stolen!" says the General.

So, across the line they goes, and back to the reservation. In about a week there's fiftytwo frantic Greasers

wanting to know where's their hosses. The army is nothing but an importer of stolen stock, and knows it, and

Well, as I says, I'm between Camp Apache and the Mexican line, so that every raiding party goes right on

past me. The point is that I'm a thousand feet or so above the valley, and the renegades is in such a devil of a

hurry about that time that they never stop to climb up and collect me. Often I've watched them trailing down

the valley in a cloud of dust. Then, in a day or two, a squad of soldiers would come up, and camp at my

spring for a while. They used to send soldiers to guard every water hole in the country so the renegades

couldn't get water. After a while, from not being bothered none, I got thinking I wasn't worth while with

Me and Johnny Hooper were pecking away at the old Virginia mine then. We'd got down about sixty feet, all

timbered, and was thinking of crosscutting. One day Johnny went to town, and that same day I got in a

I worked all the morning down at the bottom of the shaft, and when I see by the sun it was getting along

towards noon, I put in three good shots, tamped 'em down, lit the fusees, and started to climb out. It ain't

noways pleasant to light a fuse in a shaft, and then have to climb out a fiftyfoot ladder, with it burning

behind you. I never did get used to it. You keep thinking, "Now suppose there's a flaw in that fuse, or

something, and she goes off in six seconds instead of two minutes? where'll you be then?" It would give you

So I climbed fast, and stuck my head out the top without lookingand then I froze solid enough. There,

about fifty feet away, climbing up the hill on mighty tired hosses, was a dozen of the ugliest Chiricahuas you

ever don't want to meet, and in addition a Mexican renegade named Maria, who was worse than any of 'em. I

see at once their bosses was tired out, and they had a notion of camping at my water hole, not knowing

For two bits I'd have let go all holts and dropped backwards, trusting to my thick head for easy lighting. Then

I heard a little fizz and sputter from below. At that my hair riz right up so I could feel the breeze blow under

my bat. For about six seconds I stood there like an imbecile, grinning amiably. Then one of the Chiricahuas

made a sort of grunt, and I sabed that they'd seen the original exhibit your Uncle Jim was making of himself.

Then that fuse gave another sputter and one of the Apaches said "Un dah." That means "white man." It was

harder to turn my head than if I'd had a stiff neck; but I managed to do it, and I see that my ore dump wasn't

more than ten foot away. I mighty near overjumped it; and the next I knew I was on one side of it and those

Apaches on the other. Probably I flew; leastways I don't seem to remember jumping.

That didn't seem to do me much good. The renegades were grinning and laughing to think how easy a thing

they had; and I couldn't rightly think up any arguments against that notionat least from their standpoint.

They were chattering away to each other in Mexican for the benefit of Maria. Oh, they had me all distributed,

down to my suspender buttons! And me squatting behind that ore dump about as formidable as a brush

"Boom!" says she, plenty big; and a slather of rock, and stones come out of the mouth, and began to dump

down promiscuous on the scenery. I got one little one in the shoulderblade, and found time to wish my ore

dump had a roof. But those renegades caught it square in the thick of trouble. One got knocked out entirely

I put in my time dodging, but when I gets a chance to look, the Apaches has all got to cover, and is looking

This was the biggest shot of the lot, and she surely cut loose. I ought to have been halfway up the bill

watching things from a safe distance, but I wasn't. Lucky for me the shaft was a little on the drift, so she

didn't quite shoot my way. But she distributed about a ton over those renegades. They sort of half got to their

It was just a cold, raw blazer; and if it didn't go through I could see me as an Apache parlour ornament. But it

did. Those Chiricahuas give one yell and skipped. It was surely a funny sight, after they got aboard their war

I didn't stop to get all the laughs, though. In fact, I give one jump off that ledge, and I lit arunning. A

quarterhoss couldn't have beat me to that shack. There I grabbed old Meatinthepot and made a climb for

the tall country, aiming to wait around until dark, and then to pull out for Benson. Johnny Hooper wasn't

expected till next day, which was lucky. From where I lay I could see the Apaches camped out beyond my

draw, and I didn't doubt they'd visited the place. Along about sunset they all left their camp, and went into the

draw, so there, I thinks, I sees a good chance to make a start before dark. I dropped down from the mesa,

skirted the butte, and angled down across the country. After I'd gone a half mile from the cliffs, I ran across

My heart jumped right up into my mouth at that. Here was poor old Johnny, a day too early, with a

packmule of grub, walking innocent as a yearling, right into the bands of those hostiles. The trail looked

pretty fresh, and Benson's a good long day with a pack animal, so I thought perhaps I might catch him before

he runs into trouble. So I ran back on the trail as fast as I could make it. The sun was down by now, and it

I didn't overtake him, and when I got to the top of the canon I crawled along very cautious and took a look.

Of course, I expected to see everything up in smoke, but I nearly got up and yelled when I see everything all

right, and old Sukey, the packmule, and Johnny's hoss hitched up as peaceful as babies to the corral.

"THAT'S all right!" thinks I, "they're back in their camp, and haven't discovered Johnny yet. I'll snail him out

So I ran down the hill and into the shack. Johnny sat in his chairwhat there was of him. He must have got

in about two hours before sundown, for they'd had lots of time to put in on him. That's the reason they'd

stayed so long up the draw. Poor old Johnny! I was glad it was night, and he was dead. Apaches are the worst

Injuns there is for tortures. They cut off the bottoms of old man Wilkins's feet, and stood him on an

"Why ain't the shack burned?" I asks myself, "and why is the hoss and the mule tied all so peaceful to the

It didn't take long for a man who knows Injins to answer THOSE conundrums. The whole thing was a

With that I makes a run outsideby now it was darkand listens. Sure enough, I hears hosses. So I makes a

Everything seemed all right till I got up to the rimrock. Then I heard more hossesahead of me. And when

I looked back I could see some Injuns already at the shack, and starting to build a fire outside.

In a tight fix, a man is pretty apt to get scared till all hope is gone. Then he is pretty apt to get cool and calm.

That was my case. I couldn't go aheadthere was those hosses coming along the trail. I couldn't go

backthere was those Injins building the fire. So I skirmished around till I got a bright star right over the

trail head, and I trained old Meatinthe pot to bear on that star, and I made up my mind that when the star

was darkened I'd turn loose. So I lay there a while listening. By and by the star was blotted out, and I cut

loose, and old Meatinthepot missed fireshe never did it before nor since; I think that cartridge

Well, I don't know where the Injins came from, but it seemed as if the hammer had hardly clicked before

three or four of them bad piled on me. I put up the best fight I could, for I wasn't figuring to be caught alive,

and this missfire deal had fooled me all along the line. They surely had a lively time. I expected every

minute to feel a knife in my back, but when I didn't get it then I knew they wanted to bring me in alive, and

that made me fight harder. First and last, we rolled and plunged all the way from the rimrock down to the

And I thought of that renegade Mexican, and what I'd heard bout him, and that made me fight harder yet.

But after we'd fought down to the canonbed, and had lost most of our skin, a halfdozen more fell on me,

and in less than no time they had me tied. Then they picked me up and carried me over to where they'd built a

Uncle Jim stopped with an air of finality, and began lazily to refill his pipe. From the open mud fireplace he

picked a coal. Outside, the rain, faithful to the prophecy of the wideringed sun, beat fitfully against the roof.

"But, Uncle Jim," we cried in a confused chorus, "how did you get away? What did the Indians do to you?

"The first man I saw sitting at that fire," said he, "was Lieutenant Price of the United States Army, and by

"So they turned me loose. It seems the troops had driven off the renegades an hour before."

"Were Tonto Basin Apaches," explained the old man"government scouts under Tom Horn."

After the rain that had held us holed up at the Double R over one day, we discussed what we should do next.

"The flats will be too boggy for riding, and anyway the cattle will be in the high country," the Cattleman

summed up the situation. "We'd bog down the chuckwagon if we tried to get back to the J. H. But now after

"Was you ever in the Jackson country?" asked Uncle Jim. "It's the wildest part of Arizona. It's a big country

and rough, and no one lives there, and there's lots of deer and mountain lions and bear. Here's my dogs. We

We skirmished around and found a condemned army pack saddle with aparejos, and a sawbuck saddle with

kyacks. On these, we managed to condense our grub and utensils. There were plenty of horses, so our

bedding we bound flat about their naked barrels by means of the squawhitch. Then we started.

That day furnished us with a demonstration of what Arizona horses can do. Our way led first through a

canonbed filled with rounded boulders and rocks, slippery and unstable. Big cottonwoods and oaks grew so

thick as partially to conceal the cliffs on either side of us. The rimrock was mysterious with caves; beautiful

with hanging gardens of tree ferns and grasses growing thick in long transverse crevices; wonderful in colour

and shape. We passed the little canons fenced off by the rustlers as corrals into which to shunt from the herds

The Cattleman shook his head at them. "Many a man has come from Texas and established a herd with no

Then we worked up gradually to a divide, whence we could see a range of wild and rugged mountains on our

right. They rose by slopes and ledges, steep and rough, and at last ended in the thousandfoot cliffs of the

buttes, running sheer and unbroken for many miles. During all the rest of our trip they were to be our

companions, the only constant factors in the tumult of lesser peaks, precipitous canons, and twisted systems

The sky was sunandshadow after the rain. Each and every Arizonan predicted clearing.

"Why, it almost never rains in Arizona," said Jed Parker. "And when it does it quits before it begins."

Nevertheless, about noon a thick cloud gathered about the tops of the Galiuros above us. Almost immediately

it was dissipated by the wind, but when the peaks again showed, we stared with astonishment to see that they

were white with snow. It was as though a magician had passed a sheet before them the brief instant necessary

to work his great transformation. Shortly the sky thickened again, and it began to rain.

Travel had been precarious before; but now its difficulties were infinitely increased. The clay subsoil to the

rubble turned slippery and adhesive. On the sides of the mountains it was almost impossible to keep a

footing. We speedily became wet, our hands puffed and purple, our boots sodden with the water that had

"Over the next ridge," Uncle Jim promised us, "is an old shack that I fixed up seven years ago. We can all

Over the next ridge, therefore, we slipped and slid, thanking the god of luck for each ten feet gained. It was

growing cold. The cliffs and palisades near at hand showed dimly behind the falling rain; beyond them waved

and eddied the storm mists through which the mountains revealed and concealed proportions exaggerated into

unearthly grandeur. Deep in the clefts of the box canons the streams were filling. The roar of their rapids

echoed from innumerable precipices. A soft swish of water usurped the world of sound.

Nothing more uncomfortable or more magnificent could be imagined. We rode shivering. Each said to

himself, "I can stand thisright nowat the present moment. Very well; I will do so, and I will refuse to

look forward even five minutes to what I may have to stand," which is the true philosophy of tough times and

By luck we reached the bottom of that canon without a fall. It was wide, well grown with oak trees, and belly

deep in rich horse feedan ideal place to camp were it not for the fact that a thin sheet of water a quarter of

an inch deep was flowing over the entire surface of the ground. We spurred on desperately, thinking of a

The roof of the shack had fallen in, and the floor was six inches deep in adobe mud.

We did not dismountthat would have wet our saddlesbut sat on our horses taking in the details. Finally

"I know of a cave," said he, "close under a butte. It's a big cave, but it has such a steep floor that I'm not sure

"I don't know how the ridge is to get back overit was slippery enough coming this wayand the cave may

shoot us out into space, but I'd like to LOOK at a dry place anyway," replied the Cattleman.

We all felt the same about it, so back over the ridge we went. About half way down the other side Uncle Jim

turned sharp to the right, and as the "hog back" dropped behind us, we found ourselves out on the steep side

of a mountain, the perpendicular cliff over us to the right, the river roaring savagely far down below our left,

and sheets of water glazing the footing we could find among the boulders and debris. Hardly could the ponies

keep from slipping sideways on the slope, as we proceeded farther and farther from the solidity of the ridge

behind us, we experienced the illusion of venturing out on a tight rope over abysses of space. Even the feeling

of danger was only an illusion, however, composite of the falling rain, the deepening twilight, and the night

that had already enveloped the plunge of the canon below. Finally Uncle Jim stopped just within the drip

We descended eagerly. A deer bounded away from the base of the buttes. The cave ran steep, in the manner

of an inclined tunnel, far up into the dimness. We had to dig our toes in and scramble to make way up it at all,

but we found it dry, and after a little search discovered a footledge of earth sufficiently broad for a seat.

We scattered. Uncle Jim and Charley promptly annexed the slight overhang of the cliff whence the deer had

jumped. It was dry at the moment, but we uttered pessimistic predictions if the wind should change. Tom

Rich and Jim Lester had a little tent, and insisted on descending to the canonbed.

"Got to cook there, anyways," said they, and departed with the two pack mules and their bed horse.

That left the Cattleman, Windy Bill, Jed Parker, and me. In a moment Windy Bill came up to us whispering

We did so. He led us two hundred yards to another cave, twenty feet high, fifteen feet in diameter, level as a

"How's that?" he cried in triumph. "Found her just now while I was rustling niggerheads for a fire."

We unpacked our beds with chuckles of joy, and spread them carefully within the shelter of the cave. Except

for the very edges, which did not much matter, our blankets and "soguns," protected by the canvas "tarp,"

were reasonably dry. Every once in a while a spasm of conscience would seize one or the other of us.

But Windy Bill had thought of that. "I told him of this yere cave first. But he allowed he was plumb

We finished laying out our blankets. The result looked good to us. We all burst out laughing.

"Well, I'm sorry for those fellows," cried the Cattleman. We hobbled our horses and descended to the gleam

of the fire, like guilty conspirators. There we ate hastily of meat, bread and coffee, merely for the sake of

sustenance. It certainly amounted to little in the way of pleasure. The water from the direct rain, the shivering

trees, and our hat brims accumulated in our plates faster than we could bail it out. The dishes were thrust

under a canvas. Rich and Lester decided to remain with their tent, and so we saw them no more until

We broke off backloads of mesquite and toiled up the hill, tasting thickly the high altitude in the severe

labour. At the big cave we dumped down our burdens, transported our fuel piecemeal to the vicinity of the

narrow ledge, built a good fire, sat in a row, and lit our pipes. In a few moments, the blaze was burning high,

and our bodies had ceased shivering. Fantastically the firelight revealed the knobs and crevices, the ledges

and the arching walls. Their shadows leaped, following the flames, receding and advancing like playful

beasts. Far above us was a single tiny opening through which the smoke was sucked as through a chimney.

The glow ruddied the men's features. Outside was thick darkness, and the swish and rush and roar of rising

waters. Listening, Windy Bill was reminded of a story. We leaned back comfortably against the sloping walls

of the cave, thrust our feet toward the blaze, smoked, and hearkened to the tale of Windy Bill.

There's a tur'ble lot of water running loose here, but I've seen the time and place where even what is in that

drip would be worth a gold mine. That was in the emigrant days. They used to come over south of here,

through what they called Emigrant Pass, on their way to Californy. I was a kid then, about eighteen year old,

and what I didn't know about Injins and Agency cattle wasn't a patch of alkali. I had a kid outfit of h'ar bridle,

lots of silver and such, and I used to ride over and be the handsome boy before such outfits as happened

They were queer people, most of 'em from Missoury and suchlike southern seaports, and they were tur'ble

sick of travel by the time they come in sight of Emigrant Pass. Up to Santa Fe they mostly hiked along any

old way, but once there they herded up together in bunches of twenty wagons or so, 'count of our old friends,

Geronimo and Loco. A good many of 'em had horned cattle to their wagons, and they crawled along about

two miles an hour, hotter'n hell with the blower on, nothin' to look at but a mountain a week way, chuck full

Why, you boys know that country down there. Between the Chiricahua Mountains and Emigrant Pass it's

Mostly they filled up their bellies and their kegs, hoping to last through, but they sure found it drier than cork

legs, and generally long before they hit the Springs their tongues was hangin' out a foot. You see, for all their

plumb nerve in comin' so far, the most of them didn't know sic'em. They were plumb innocent in regard to

savin' their water, and Injins, and such; and the longhaired buckskin fakes they picked up at Santa Fe for

Texas Pete was a tough citizen from the Lone Star. He was about as broad as he was long, and wore all sorts

of big whiskers and black eyebrows. His heart was very bad. You never COULD tell where Texas Pete was

goin' to jump next. He was a sidewinder and a diamondback and a little black rattlesnake all rolled into

one. I believe that Texas Pete person cared about as little for killin' a man as for takin' a drinkand he

shorely drank without an effort. Peaceable citizens just spoke soft and minded their own business;

Now this Texas Pete happened to discover a water hole right out in the plumb middle of the desert. He

promptly annexed said water hole, digs her out, timbers her up, and lays for emigrants.

He charged two bits a headman or beastand nobody got a mouthful till he paid up in hard coin.

Think of the wads he raked in! I used to figure it up, just for the joy of envyin' him, I reckon. An average

twentywagon outfit, first and last, would bring him in somewheres about fifty dollarsand besides he had

We used all to go down sometimes to watch them come in. When they see that little canvas shack and that

well, they begun to cheer up and move fast. And when they see that sign, "Water, two bits a head," their eyes

Then come the kicks. What a howl they did raise, shorely. But it didn't do no manner of good. Texas Pete

didn't do nothin' but sit there and smoke, with a kind of sulky gleam in one corner of his eye. He didn't even

take the trouble to answer, but his Winchester lay across his lap. There wasn't no humour in the situation for

"But you don't mean two bits a head for HUMANS!" yells the man. "Why, you can get whisky for that!"

"I can read it all right?" says the man, tryin' a new deal, "but they tell me not to believe more'n half I read."

I didn't blame them for raisin' their howl. Why, at that time the regular water holes was chargin' five cents a

head from the government freighters, and the motto was always "Hold up Uncle Sam," at that. Once in a

while some outfit would get mad and go chargin' off dry; but it was a long, long way to the Springs, and

mighty hot and dusty. Texas Pete and his one lonesome water hole shorely did a big business.

Late one afternoon me and Gentleman Tim was joggin' along above Texas Pete's place. It was a tur'ble hot

dayyou had to prime yourself to spitand we was just gettin' back from drivin' some beef up to the troops

at Fort Huachuca. We was due to cross the Emigrant Trailshe's wore in tur'ble deepyou can see the ruts

today. When we topped the rise we see a little old outfit just makin' out to drag along.

It was one little schooner all by herself, drug along by two poor old cavallos that couldn't have pulled my hat

off. Their tongues was out, and every once in a while they'd stick in a chuckhole. Then a man would get

down and put his shoulder to the wheel, and everybody'd take a heave, and up they'd come, all atrembling

He drove up to the water trough there at Texas Pete's, me and Gentleman Tim followin' along because our

"I'm sorry," says he, "I ain't got no four bits. I got my roll lifted off'n me."

"All right. It's gettin' the cool of the evenin'; we'll make it." He turns into the inside of that old schooner.

A whitefaced woman who looked mighty good to us alkalis opened the flaps and gave out a tin cup, which

"I ain't askin' for no water for my stock," says he, "but my wife and baby has been out in this sun all day

without a drop of water. Our cask slipped a hoop and bust just this side of Dos Cabesas. The poor kid is

At that the woman comes out, a little bit of a baby in her arms. The kid had fuzzy yellow hair, and its face

was flushed red and shiny. "Shorely you won't refuse a sick child a drink of water, sir," says she.

But Texas Pete had some sort of a special grouch; I guess he was just beginning to get his snowshoes off after

"What the hell are youall doin' on the trail without no money at all?" he growls, "and how do you expect to

"Well," says the man, still reasonable, "I ain't got no money, but I'll give you six bits' worth of flour or trade

"I don't run no truckstore," snaps Texas Pete, and turns square on his heel and goes back to his chair.

"You're the meanest man I ever see," observes Tim. "I wouldn't speak to you if I met you in hell carryin' a

"You're the softest _I_ ever see," sneers Pete. "Don't they have any genooine Texans down your way?"

Which the man had been standin' there bewildered, the cup hangin' from his finger. At last, lookin' pretty

desperate, he stooped down to dig up a little of the wet from an overflow puddle lyin' at his feet. At the same

time the hosses, left sort of to themselves and bein' drier than a covered bridge, drug forward and stuck their

Gentleman Tim and me was sittin' there on our hosses, a little to one side. We saw Texas Pete jump up from

his chair, take a quick aim, and cut loose with his rifle. It was plumb unexpected to us. We hadn't thought of

any shootin', and our sixshooters was tied in, 'count of the jumpy country we'd been drivin' the steers over.

But Gentleman Tim, who had unslung his rope, aimin' to help the hosses out of the chuckhole, snatched her

off the horn, and with one of the prettiest twentyfoot flip throws I ever see done he snaked old Texas Pete

right out of his wickyup, gun and all. The old renegade did his best to twist around for a shot at us; but it

was no go; and I never enjoyed hogtying a critter more in my life than I enjoyed hogtying Texas Pete.

We were some relieved to find the family all right, but Texas Pete had bored one of them poor old crowbait

"It's lucky for you you don't get the old man," says Gentleman Tim very quiet and polite.

Which Gentleman Tim was an Irishman, and I'd been on the range long enough with him to know that when

"I hope, sir" says he to the stranger, "that you will give your wife and baby a satisfying drink. As for your

hoss, pray do not be under any apprehension. Our friend, Mr. Texas Pete, here, has kindly consented to make

"Let him alone," I whispers. "When he talks that way, he's mad; and when he's mad, it's better to leave nature

He seemed to sabe all right, so we built us a little fire and started some grub, while Gentleman Tim walked up

"Stand up, you hound," says he. "Now listen to me. If you make a break to get away, or if you refuse to do

just as I tell you, I won't shoot you, but I'll march you up country and see that Geronimo gets you."

He sorted out a shovel and pick, made Texas Pete carry them right along the trail a quarter, and started him to

Texas Pete started in hard enough, Tim sittin' over him on his hoss, his sixshooter loose, and his rope free.

The man and I stood by, not darin' to say a word. After a minute or so Texas Pete began to work slower and

"I am goin' to see that you give the gentleman's hoss decent interment," says Gentleman Tim very polite.

Texas Pete worked hard for a while, for Tim's quietness was beginning to scare him up the worst way. By and

"You may come out. Billy, my son, cover him. Now, Mr. Texas Pete," he says, cold as steel, "there is the

grave. We will place the hoss in it. Then I intend to shoot you and put you in with the hoss, and write you an

epitaph that will be a comfort to such travellers of the Trail as are honest, and a warnin' to such as are not. I'd

as soon kill you now as an hour from now, so you may make a break for it if you feel like it."

He stooped over to look into the hole. I thought he looked an extra long time, but when he raised his head his

We all went back to the shack. From the corral Tim took Texas Pete's best team and hitched her to the old

"There," says he to the man. "Now you'd better hit the trail. Take that whisky keg there for water.

We sat there without sayin' a word for some time after the schooner had pulled out. Then Tim says, very

"Come on, Billy," says he to me. "We'll just leave our friend tied up. I'll be back tomorrow to turn you

loose. In the meantime it won't hurt you a bit to be a little uncomfortable, and hungryand thirsty."

Now all this knocked me hellwest and crooked, and I said so, but I couldn't get a word out of Gentleman

We drawed into the ranch near midnight, but next mornin' Tim had a long talk with the boss, and the result

was that the whole outfit was instructed to arm up with a pick or a shovel apiece, and to get set for Texas

Pete's. We got there a little after noon, turned the old boy outwithout firearmsand then began to dig at a

place Tim told us to, near that grave of Texas Pete's. In three hours we had the finest waterhole developed

"Now you old skin," says he to Texas Pete, "charge all you want to on your own property. But if I ever hear

Then we rode off home. You see, when Gentleman Tim inspected that grave, he noted indications of water;

and it struck him that runnin' the old renegade out of business was a neater way of gettin' even than merely

Somebody threw a fresh mesquite on the fire. The flames leaped up again, showing a thin trickle of water

running down the other side of the cave. The steady downpour again made itself prominent through the

"Texas Pete?" chuckled Windy Bill. "Well, he put in a heap of his spare time lettin' Tim alone."

After Windy Bill had finished his story we began to think it time to turn in. Uncle Jim and Charley slid and

slipped down the chutelike passage leading from the cave and disappeared in the direction of the overhang

beneath which they had spread their bed. After a moment we tore off long bundles of the niggerhead blades,

lit the resinous ends at our fire, and with these torches started to make our way along the base of the cliff to

Once without the influence of the fire our impromptu links cast an adequate light. The sheets of rain became

suddenly visible as they entered the circle of illumination. By careful scrutiny of the footing I gained the

entrance to our cave without mishap. I looked back. Here and there irregularly gleamed and spluttered my

companions' torches. Across each slanted the rain. All else was of inky blackness except where, between

them and me, a faint red reflection shone on the wet rocks. Then I turned inside.

Now, to judge from the crumbling powder of the footing, that cave had been dry since Noah. In fact, its roof

was nearly a thousand feet thick. But since we had spread our blankets, the persistent waters had soaked

down and through. The thousandfoot roof had a sprung a leak. Three separate and distinct streams of water

ran as from spigots. I lowered my torch. The canvas tarpaulin shone with wet, and in its exact centre

"Well, I'll be," I began. Then I remembered those three wending their way along a wet and disagreeable trail,

happy and peaceful in anticipation of warm blankets and a level floor. I chuckled and sat on my heels out of

First came Jed Parker, his head bent to protect the fire in his pipe. He gained the very centre of the cave

Then he cast one glance at each bed, and one at me. His grave, hawklike features relaxed. A faint grin

Next the Cattleman. He looked about him with a comical expression of dismay, and burst into a hearty laugh.

Windy Bill was the last. He stooped his head to enter, straightened his lank figure, and took in the situation

"Well, this is handy," said he; "I was gettin' tur'ble dry, and was thinkin' I would have to climb way down to

But now our torches began to run low. A small dry bush grew near the entrance. We ignited it, and while it

Our return without torches along the base of that butte was something to remember. The night was so thick

you could feel the darkness pressing on you; the mountain dropped abruptly to the left, and was strewn with

boulders and blocks of stone. Collisions and stumbles were frequent. Once I stepped off a little ledge five or

six feetnothing worse than a barked shin. And all the while the rain, pelting us unmercifully, searched out

At last we opened out the gleam of fire in our cave, and a minute later were engaged in struggling desperately

up the slant that brought us to our ledge and the slope on which our fire burned.

"My Lord!" panted Windy Bill, "a man had ought to have hooks on his eyebrows to climb up here!"

We renewed the fireand blessed the backload of mesquite we had packed up earlier in the evening. Our

blankets we wrapped around our shoulders, our feet we hung over the ledge toward the blaze, our backs we

leaned against the hollow slant of the cave's wall. We were not uncomfortable. The beat of the rain sprang up

in the darkness, growing louder and louder, like horsemen passing on a hard road. Gradually we dozed off.

For a time everything was pleasant. Dreams came fused with realities; the firelight faded from consciousness

or returned fantastic to our halfawakening; a delicious numbness overspread our tired bodies. The shadows

After a time the fact obtruded itself dimly through our stupor that the constant pressure of the hard rock had

That was the beginning of awakening. The new position did not suit. A slight shivering seized us, which the

drawing closer of the blanket failed to end. Finally I threw aside my hat and looked out. Jed Parker, a vivid

patchwork comforter wrapped about his shoulders, stood upright and silent by the fire. I kept still, fearing to

awaken the others. In a short time I became aware that the others were doing identically the same thing. We

A thick acrid smoke filled the air. The Cattleman, rising, left a trail of incandescent footprints. We

investigated hastily, and discovered that the supposed earth on the slant of the cave was nothing more than

bat guano, tons of it. The fire, eating its way beneath, had rendered untenable its immediate vicinity. We felt

as though we were living over a volcano. How soon our ledge, of the same material, might be attacked, we

had no means of knowing. Overcome with drowsiness, we again disposed our blankets, resolved to get as

many naps as possible before even these constrained quarters were taken from us.

This happened sooner and in a manner otherwise than we had expected. Windy Bill brought us to

Consciousness reported to us a strange, hurried sound like the long roll on a drum. Investigation showed us

that this cave, too, had sprung a leak; not with any premonitory drip, but all at once, as though someone had

turned on a faucet. In ten seconds a very competent streamlet six inches wide had eroded a course down

through the guano, past the fire and to the outer slope. And by the irony of fate that oneand only

oneleak in all the roof expanse of a big cave was directly over one end of our tiny ledge. The Cattleman

"Reminds me of the old farmer and his kind friend," said he. "Kind friend hunts up the old farmer in the

"'But, that ain't the worst. The barn set fire to the house, and it was burnedtotal loss.'

"'Good heavens, man!' cries his friend, astonished, 'what in the world do you find to laugh at in that?'

"Well," finished the Cattleman, "that's what strikes me about our case; it's so darn complete!"

"Lord! Six hours to day!" groaned Windy Bill. "How'd you like to be doin' a nice quiet job at gardenin' in the

East where you could belly up to the bar reg'lar every evenin', and drink a pussy cafe and smoke tailormade

"You wouldn't like it a bit," put in the Cattleman with decision; whereupon in proof he told us the following

Windy has mentioned Gentleman Tim, and that reminded me of the first time I ever saw him. He was an

Irishman all right, but he had been educated in England, and except for his accent he was more an

Englishman than anything else. A freight outfit brought him into Tucson from Santa Fe and dumped him

Certainly he was one of the greenest specimens I ever saw in this country. He had on a pair of balloon pants

and a Norfolk jacket, and was surrounded by a halfdozen baby trunks. His face was redcheeked and

aggressively clean, and his eye limpid as a child's. Most of those present thought that indicated childishness;

It seemed that he was out for big game, and intended to go after silvertips somewhere in these very

mountains. Of course he was offered plenty of advice, and would probably have made engagements much to

"My friend," said I, drawing him aside, "I don't want to be inquisitive, but what might you do when you're

"I'm a younger son," said he. I was green myself in those days, and knew nothing of primogeniture.

"That is a very interesting piece of family history," said I, "but it does not answer my question."

"Well now, I hadn't thought of that," said he, "but in a manner of speaking, it does. I do nothing."

"Well," said I, unabashed, "if you saw me trying to be a younger son and likely to forget myself and do

"I mean that if you hire any of those men to guide you in the mountains, you'll be outrageously cheated, and

"You damn ungrateful pup," I said, "go to the devil in your own way," and turned square on my heel.

"Oh, I say now, I'm sorry. I didn't rightly understand. Do wait one moment until I dispose of these boxes of

He got some Greasers to take his trunks over to the hotel, then linked his arm in mine most engagingly.

"Now, my dear chap," said he, "let's go somewhere for a B S, and find out about each other."

We were both young and expansive. We exchanged views, names, and confidences, and before noon we had

The upshot of the matter was that the Honourable Timothy Clare and I had a most excellent month's

At Tucson was Schiefflein and his stories of a big strike down in the Apache country. Nothing would do but

that we should both go to see for ourselves. We joined the second expedition; crept in the gullies, tied bushes

about ourselves when monumenting corners, and so helped establish the town of Tombstone. We made

nothing, nor attempted to. Neither of us knew anything of mining, but we were both thirsty for adventure, and

took a schoolboy delight in playing the game of life or death with the Chiricahuas.

In fact, I never saw anybody take to the wild life as eagerly as the Honourable Timothy Clare. He wanted to

attempt everything. With him it was no sooner see than try, and he had such an abundance of enthusiasm that

he generally succeeded. The balloon pants soon went. In a month his outfit was irreproachable. He used to

study us by the hour, taking in every detail of our equipment, from the smallest to the most important. Then

he asked questions. For all his desire to be one of the country, he was never ashamed to acknowledge his

"Now, don't you chaps think it silly to wear such high heels to your boots?" he would ask. "It seems to me a

"No vanity about it, Tim," I explained. "In the first place, it keeps your foot from slipping through the stirrup.

In the second place, it is good to grip on the ground when you're roping afoot."

So he'd get him a pair of boots. For a while it was enough to wear and own all these things. He seemed to

delight in his sixshooter and his rope just as ornaments to himself and horse. But he soon got over that. Then

For the time being, pistol practice, for instance, would absorb all his thoughts. He'd bang away at intervals all

"That bally scheme won't work," he would complain. "I believe if I extended my thumb along the cylinder it

He was always easing the triggerpull, or filing the sights. In time he got to be a fairly accurate and very

"What's the use?" I used to ask him. "If you were going to be a buckeroo, you couldn't go into harder

He had only one real vice, that I could see. He would gamble. Stud poker was his favourite; and I never saw a

Britisher yet who could play poker. I used to head him off, when I could, and he was always grateful, but the

Buck Johnson was just seeing his chance then, and was preparing to take some breeding cattle over into the

Soda Springs Valley. Everybody laughed at himsaid it was right in the line of the Chiricahua raids, which

was true. But Buck had been in there with Agency steers, and thought he knew. So he collected a trail crew,

brought some Oregon cattle across, and built his home ranch of threefoot adobe walls with portholes. I

joined the trail crew; and somehow or another the Honourable Timothy got permission to go along on his

The trail was a long one. We had thirst and heat and stampedes and some Indian scares. But in the queer

atmospheric conditions that prevailed that summer, I never saw the desert more wonderful. It was like waking

to the glory of God to sit up at dawn and see the colours change on the dry ranges.

At the home ranch, again, Tim managed to get permission to stay on. He kept his own mount of horses, took

care of them, hunted, and took part in all the cow work. We lost some cattle from Indians, of course, but it

was too near the Reservation for them to do more than pick up a few stray head on their way through. The

troops were always after them full jump, and so they never had time to round up the beef. But of course we

had to look out or we'd lose our hair, and many a cowboy has won out to the home ranch in an almighty

exciting race. This was nuts for the Honourable Timothy Clare, much better than hunting silvertips, and he

Things went along that way for some time, until one evening as I was turning out the horses a buckboard

drew in, and from it descended Tony Briggs and a dapper little fellow dressed all in black and with a plug hat.

"Which I accounts for said hat reachin' the ranch, because it's Friday and the boys not in town," Tony

"I am looking," said he in a peculiar, singsong manner I have since learned to be English, "for the

Honourable Timothy Clare. Is he here?" "Oh, you're looking for him are you?" said I. "And who might you

The man picked a pair of eyeglasses off his stomach where they dangled at the end of a chain, perched them

on his nose, and stared me over. I must have looked uncompromising, for after a few seconds he abruptly

wrinkled his nose so that the glasses fell promptly to his stomach again, felt his waistcoat pocket, and

"My dear man," he rejoined with a slight impatience, "I am not here to do your young friend a harm. In fact,

"Very well," I agreed, and led the way to the oneroom adobe that Tim and I occupied.

If I had expected an enthusiastic greeting for the boyhood friend from the old home, I would have been

disappointed. Tim was sitting with his back to the door reading an old magazine. When we entered he

"Ah, Case," said he, and went on reading. After a moment he said without looking up, "Sit down."

The little man took it calmly, deposited himself in a chair and his bag between his feet, and looked about him

daintily at our rough quarters. I made a move to go, whereupon Tim laid down his magazine, yawned,

"Don't go, Harry," he begged. "Well, Case," he addressed the barrister, "what is it this time? Must be

something devilish important to bring youhow many thousand miles is itinto such a country as this."

"It is important, Mr. Clare," stated the lawyer in his dry singsong tones; "but my journey might have been

Tim laughed softly. "Where they are, with my last two quarters' allowance. I especially instructed them to

send me no mail. One spends no money in this country." He paused, pulling his moustache. "I'm truly sorry

you had to come so far," he continued, "and if your business is, as I suspect, the old one of inducing me to

return to my dear uncle's arms, I assure you the mission will prove quite fruitless. Uncle Hillary and I could

"And yet your uncle, the Viscount Mar, was very fond of you," ventured Case. "Your allowances"

"He has continued that generosity in the terms of his will, and those terms I am here to communicate to you."

"The late Viscount," said he, "has been graciously pleased to leave you in fee simple his entire estate of

Staghurst, together with its buildings, rentals, and privileges. This, besides the residential rights, amounts to

"A little less than fifty thousand dollars a year, Harry," Tim shot over his shoulder at me.

"Oh, there is!" exclaimed Tim, his crest falling. "Well, knowing my Uncle Hillary"

"The condition is not extravagant," the lawyer hastily interposed. "It merely entails continued residence in

England, and a minimum of nine months on the estate. This provision is absolute, and the estate reverts in its

discontinuance, but may I be permitted to observe that the majority of men, myself among the number, are

content to spend the most of their lives, not merely in the confines of a kingdom, but between the four walls

of a room, for much less than ten thousand pounds a year. Also that England is not without its attractions for

"Then the estate reverts to the heirs at law, and you receive an annuity of one hundred pounds, payable

"My distinguished client never informed me," replied the lawyer, "but"and a twinkle appeared in his

"Oh, but I recognise Uncle Hillary there!" he cried. "Well, Mr. Case, I am sure Mr. Johnson, the owner of this

He returned after a few minutes to find me sitting' smoking a moody pipe. I liked Tim, and I was sorry to

have him go. Then, too, I was ruffled, in the senseless manner of youth, by the sudden altitude to which his

changed fortunes had lifted him. He stood in the middle of the room, surveying me, then came across and laid

At that he jerked me bodily out of my seat and stood me up in the centre of the room, the Irish blazing out of

"Here, none of that!" he snapped. "You damn little fool! Don't you 'Mr. Clare' me!"

So in five minutes we were talking it over. Tim was very much excited at the prospect. He knew Staghurst

well, and told me all about the big stone house, and the avenue through the trees; and the hedgerow roads,

and the lawn with its peacocks, and the round green hills, and the labourers' cottages.

"It's home," said he, "and I didn't realise before how much I wanted to see it. And I'll be a man of weight

We made all sorts of plans as to how I was going to visit him just as soon as I could get together the money

for the passage. He had the delicacy not to offer to let me have it; and that clinched my trust and love of him.

The next day he drove away with Tony and the dapper little lawyer. I am not ashamed to say that I watched

I was with Buck Johnson all that summer, and the following winter, as well. We had our first roundup,

found the natural increase much in excess of the loss by Indians, and extended our holdings up over the Rock

Creek country. We witnessed the start of many Indian campaigns, participated in a few little brushes with the

Chiricahuas, saw the beginning of the cattlerustling. A man had not much opportunity to think of anything

but what he had right on hand, but I found time for a few speculations on Tim. I wondered how he looked

now, and what he was doing, and how in blazes he managed to get away with fifty thousand a year.

And then one Sunday in June, while I was lying on my bunk, Tim pushed open the door and walked in. I was

young, but I'd seen a lot, and I knew the expression of his face. So I laid low and said nothing.

"I know all about you," said Buck, without any preliminaries; "your man, Case, has wrote me. I don't know

your reasons, and I don't want to knowit's none of my businessand I ain't goin' to tell you just what kind

of a damn fool I think you arethat's none of my business, either. But I want you to understand without

"When you were out here before I was glad to have you here as a sort of guest. Then you were what I've

heerd called a gentleman of leisure. Now you're nothin' but a remittance man. Your money's nothin' to me,

but the principle of the thing is. The country is plumb pestered with remittance men, doin' nothin', and I don't

aim to run no home for incompetents. I had a son of a duke drivin' wagon for me; and he couldn't drive nails

in a snowbanks. So don't you herd up with the idea that you can come on this ranch and loaf."

"I'm willing to give you a job," replied Buck, "but it's jest an ordinary cowpuncher's job at forty a month.

"All right," finished Buck, "so that's understood. Your friend Case wanted me to give you a lot of advice. A

man generally has about as much use for advice as a cow has for four hind legs."

"Hullo, Harry," said he, as though he had seen me the day before, "I've come back."

"How come back?" I asked. "I thought you couldn't leave the estate. Have they broken the will?"

"The long and short of it is, that I couldn't afford that estate and that money."

"Tim Clare," said I at last, "do you mean to say that you have given up an English estate and fifty thousand

dollars a year to be a remittance man at five hundred, and a cowpuncher on as much more?"

He walked to the door and looked out across the desert to where the mountains hovered like soapbubbles on

"Harry," said he in a low voice, "do you remember the camp we made on the shoulder of the mountain that

night we were caught out? And do you remember how the dawn came up on the big snow peaks across the

wayand all the canon below us filled with whirling mistsand the steel stars leaving us one by one?

Where could I find room for that in English paddocks? And do you recall the day we trailed across the Yuma

deserts, and the sun beat into our skulls, and the dry, brittle hills looked like papiermache, and the grey

sagebush ran off into the rise of the hills; and then came sunset and the hard, dry mountains grew filmy, like

gauze veils of many colours, and melted and glowed and faded to slate blue, and the stars came out? The

English hills are rounded and green and curried, and the sky is near, and the stars only a few miles up. And do

you recollect that dark night when old Loco and his warriors were camped at the base of Cochise's

Stronghold, and we crept down through the velvet dark wondering when we would be discovered, our mouths

"It's all very well for the man who is brought up to it, and who has seen nothing else. Case can exist in four

walls; he has been brought up to it and knows nothing different. But a man like me

"They wanted me to canter between hedgerow,I who have ridden the desert where the sky over me and

the plain under me were bigger than the Islander's universe! They wanted me to oversee little farmsI who

have watched the sun rising over half a world! Talk of your ten thou' a year and what it'll buy! You know,

Harry, how it feels when a steer takes the slack of your rope, and your pony sits back! Where in England can

I buy that? You know the rising and the falling of days, and the boundless spaces where your heart grows big,

and the thirst of the desert and the hunger of the trail, and a sun that shines and fills the sky, and a wind that

blows fresh from the wide places! Where in parcelled, snug, green, tight little England could I buy that with

ten thou'aye, or an hundred times ten thou'? No, no, Harry, that fortune would cost me too dear. I have

seen and done and been too much. I've come back to the Big Country, where the pay is poor and the work is

hard and the comfort small, but where a man and his soul meet their Maker face to face."

The Cattleman had finished his yarn. For a time no one spoke. Outside, the volume of rain was subsiding.

Windy Bill reported a few stars shining through rifts in the showers. The chill that precedes the dawn brought

"I don't know whether he was right or wrong," mused the Cattleman, after a while. "A man can do a heap

with that much money. And yet an old 'alkali' is never happy anywhere else. However," he concluded

emphatically, "one thing I do know: rain, cold, hunger, discomfort, curses, kicks, and violent deaths included,

there isn't one of you grumblers who would hold that gardening job you spoke of three days!"

Dawn broke, so we descended through wet grasses to the canon. There, after some difficulty, we managed to

start a fire, and so ate breakfast, the rain still pouring down on us. About nine o'clock, with miraculous

suddenness, the torrent stopped. It began to turn cold. The Cattleman and I decided to climb to the top of the

It was rather a stiff ascent, but once above the sheer cliffs we found ourselves on a rolling meadow tableland

a halfmile broad by, perhaps, a mile and a half in length. Grass grew high; here and there were small live

oaks planted parklike; slight and rounded ravines accommodated brooklets. As we walked back, the edges

blended in the edges of the mesa across the canon. The deep gorges, which had heretofore seemed the most

prominent elements of the scenery, were lost. We stood, apparently, in the middle of a wide and undulating

plain, diversified by little ridges, and running with a free sweep to the very foot of the snowy Galiuros. It

seemed as though we should be able to ride horseback in almost any given direction. Yet we knew that ten

minutes' walk would take us to the brink of most stupendous chasmsso deep that the water flowing in them

hardly seemed to move; so rugged that only with the greatest difficulty could a horseman make his way

through the country at all; and yet so ancient that the bottoms supported forests, rich grasses, and rounded,

We succeeded in killing a nice, fat whitetail buck, and so returned to camp happy. The rain, held off. We

dug ditches, organised shelters, cooked a warm meal. For the next day we planned a bear hunt afoot, far up a

But when we awoke in the morning we threw aside our coverings with some difficulty to look on a ground

covered with snow; trees laden almost to the breaking point with snow, and the air filled with it.

"No," agreed Uncle Jim drily. "No b'ar. And what's more, unless yo're aimin' to stop here somewhat of a

We cooked with freezing fingers, ate while dodging avalanches from the trees, and packed reluctantly. The

ropes were frozen, the hobbles stiff, everything either crackling or wet. Finally the task was finished. We took

The country was wonderfully beautiful with the white not yet shaken from the trees and rock ledges. Also it

was wonderfully slippery. The snow was soft enough to ball under the horses' hoofs, so that most of the time

the poor animals skated and stumbled along on stilts. Thus we made our way back over ground which, naked

Imagine riding along a slant of rock shelving off to a bad tumble, so steep that your pony has to do more or

less expert ankle work to keep from slipping off sideways. During the passage of that rock you are apt to sit

very light. Now cover it with several inches of snow, stick a snowball on each hoof of your mount, and try

again. When you have ridden itor its duplicatea few score of times, select a steep mountain side, cover it

with round rocks the size of your head, and over that spread a concealing blanket of the same sticky snow.

Once across the divide, we ran into a new sort of trouble. You may remember that on our journey over we

had been forced to travel for some distance in a narrow streambed. During our passage we had scrambled up

some rather steep and rough slopes, and hopped up some fairly high ledges. Now we found the heretofore dry

bed flowing a good eight inches deep. The steep slopes had become cascades; the ledges, waterfalls. When

we came to them, we had to "shoot the rapids" as best we could, only to land with a PLUNK in an

indeterminately deep pool at the bottom. Some of the pack horses went down, sousing again our unfortunate

After a time the gorge widened. We came out into the box canon with its trees. Here the water spread and

shoaled to a depth of only two or three inches. We splashed along gaily enough, for, with the exception of an

Jed Parker and I happened to ride side by side, bringing up the rear and seeing to it that the pack animals did

not stray or linger. As we passed the first of the rustlers' corrals, he called my attention to them.

"Go take a look," said he. "We only got those fellows out of here two years ago."

I rode over. At this point the rimrock broke to admit the ingress of a ravine into the main canon. Riding a

short distance up the ravine, I could see that it ended abruptly in a perpendicular cliff. As the sides also were

precipitous, it became necessary only to build a fence across the entrance into the main canon to become

possessed of a corral completely closed in. Remembering the absolute invisibility of these sunken canons

until the rider is almost directly over them, and also the extreme roughness and remoteness of the district, I

"There's quite a yarn about the gang that held this hole," said Jed Parker to me, when I had ridden back to him

"I'll tell you about it sometime." We climbed the hill, descended on the Double R, built a fire in the stove,

dried out, and were happy. After a square mealand a dry oneI reminded Jed Parker of his promise, and

so, sitting crosslegged on his "sogun" in the middle of the floor, he told us the following yarn:

There's a good deal of romance been written about the "bad man," and there's about the same amount of

nonsense. The bad man is justa plain murderer, neither more nor less. He never does get into a real, good,

plain, standup gunfight if he can possibly help it. His killin's are done from behind a door, or when he's got

his man dead to rights. There's Sam Cook. You've all heard of him. He had nerve, of course, and when he was

backed into a corner he made good; he was sure sudden death with a gun. But when he went for a man

deliberate, he didn't take no special chances. For a while he was marshal at Willets. Pretty soon it was noted

that there was a heap of cases of resisting arrest, where Sam as marshal had to shoot, and that those cases

almost always happened to be his personal enemies. Of course, that might be all right, but it looked

suspicious. Then one day he killed poor old Max Schmidt out behind his own saloon. Called him out and shot

him in the stomach. Said Max resisted arrest on a warrant for keepin' open out of hours! That was a sweet

warrant to take out in Willets, anyway! Mrs. Schmidt always claimed that she say that deal played, and that,

while they were talkin' perfectly peacable, Cook let drive from the hip at about two yards' range. Anyway, we

decided we needed another marshal. Nothin' else was ever done, for the Vigilantes hadn't been formed, and

your individual and decent citizen doesn't care to be marked by a gun of that stripe. Leastwise, unless he

wants to go in for badman methods and do a little ambusheein' on his own account.

The point is, that these yere bad men are a lowdown, miserable proposition, and plain, coldblood

murderers, willin' to wait for a sure thing, and without no compunctions whatsoever. The bad man takes you

unawares, when you're sleepin', or talkin', or drinkin', or lookin' to see what for a day it's goin' to be, anyway.

He don't give you no show, and sooner or later he's goin' to get you in the safest and easiest way for himself.

And, until you've seen a few men called out of their shacks for a friendly conversation, and shot when they

happen to look away; or asked for a drink of water, and killed when they stoop to the spring; or potted from

behind as they go into a room, it's pretty hard to believe that any man can he so plumb lackin' in fair play or

As you boys know, I come in from Texas to Buck Johnson's about ten year back. I had a pretty good mount

of ponies that I knew, and I hated to let them go at prices they were offerin' then, so I made up my mind to

ride across and bring them in with me. It wasn't so awful far, and I figured that I'd like to take in what New

About down by Albuquerque I tracked up with another outfit headed my way. There was five of them, three

men, and a woman, and a yearlin' baby. They had a dozen hosses, and that was about all I could see. There

was only two packed, and no wagon. I suppose the whole outfitpots, pans, and kettleswas worth five

dollars. It was just supper when I run across them, and it didn't take more'n one look to discover that flour,

coffee, sugar, and salt was all they carried. A yearlin' carcass, halfskinned, lay near, and the frypan was,

They nodded a little, but didn't say nothin'. My hosses fell to grazin', and I eased myself around in my saddle,

and made a cigareet. The men was tall, lank fellows, with kind of sullen faces, and sly, shifty eyes; the

woman was dirty and generally mussed up. I knowed that sort all right. Texas was gettin' too many fences for

One of 'em grunted "Yes" at me; and, after a while, the biggest asked me very grudgin' if I wouldn't light and

"You seem to have more meat than you need, though," says I. "I could use a little of that."

I took a steak, and noted that the hide had been mighty well cut to ribbons around the flanks and that the head

"Well," says I to the carcass, "No one's going to be able to swear whether you're a maverick or not, but I bet

I gave them a thankyou, and climbed on again. My hosses acted some surprised at bein' gathered up again,

"It looks like a plumb imposition, cavallos," says I to them, "after an allday, but you sure don't want to join

that outfit any more than I do the angels, and if we camp here we're likely to do both."

I didn't see them any more after that until I'd hit the Lazy Y, and had started in runnin' cattle in the Soda

Springs Valley. Larry Eagen and I rode together those days, and that's how I got to know him pretty well.

One day, over in the Elm Flat, we ran smack on this Texas outfit again, headed north. This time I was on my

own range, and I knew where I stood, so I could show a little more curiosity in the case.

Well, we rode the range for upwards of two year. In that time we saw our Texas friendsname of

Hahntwo or three times in Willets, and heard of them off and on. They bought an old brand of Steve

McWilliams for seventyfive dollars, carryin' six or eight head of cows. After that, from time to time, we

heard of them buying moretwo or three head from one man, and two or three from another. They branded

them all with that McWilliams ironT 0so, pretty soon, we began to see the cattle on the range.

Now, a good cattleman knows cattle just as well as you know people, and he can tell them about as far off.

Horned critters look alike to you, but even in a country supportin' a good many thousand head, a man used to

the business can recognise most every individual as far as he can see him. Some is better than others at it. I

suppose you really have to be brought up to it. So we boys at the Lazy Y noted all the cattle with the new T 0,

and could estimate pretty close that the Hahn outfit might own, maybe, thirtyfive head all told.

That was all very well, and nobody had any kick comin'. Then one day in the spring, we came across our first

What's a sleeper? A sleeper is a calf that has been earmarked, but not branded. Every owner has a certain

brand, as you know, and then he crops and slits the ears in a certain way, too. In that manner he don't have to

look at the brand, except to corroborate the ears; and, as the critter generally sticks his ears up inquirin'like

to anyone ridin' up, it's easy to know the brand without lookin' at it, merely from the earmarks. Once in a

great while, when a man comes across an unbranded calf, and it ain't handy to build a fire, he just earmarks

it and let's the brandin' go till later. But it isn't done often, and our outfit had strict orders never to make

Well, one day in the spring, as I say, Larry and me was ridin', when we came across a Lazy Y cow and calf.

The little fellow was earmarked all right, so we rode on, and never would have discovered nothin' if a bush

rabbit hadn't jumped and scared the calf right across in front of our hosses. Then we couldn't help but see that

Of course we roped him and put the iron on him. I took the chance to look at his ears,, and saw that the

marking had been done quite recent, so when we got in that night I reported to Buck Johnson that one of the

punchers was gettin' lazy and sleeperin'. Naturally he went after the man who had done it; but every puncher

swore up and down, and back and across, that he'd branded every calf he'd had a rope on that spring. We put

And then, about a week later, one of the other boys reported a TriangleH sleeper. The TriangleH was the

Goodrich brand, so we didn't have nothin' to do with that. Some of them might be sleeperin' for all we knew.

So far, so good. Sleepers runnin' in such numbers was a little astonishin', but nothin' suspicious. Cattle did

well that summer, and when we come to round up in the fall, we cut out maybe a dozen of those T 0 cattle

that had strayed out of that Hahn country. Of the dozen there was five grown cows, and seven yearlin's.

"My Lord, Jed," says Buck to me, "they's a heap of these youngsters comin' over our way."

But still, as a young critter is more apt to stray than an old one that's got his range established, we didn't lay

no great store by that neither. The Hahns took their bunch, and that's all there was to it.

Next spring, though, we found a few more sleepers, and one day we came on a cow that had gone dead lame.

That was usual, too, but Buck, who was with me, had somethin' on his mind. Finally he turned back and

"Might be," says he, "but her heels lame that way makes it look more like hobbles."

So we didn't say nothin' more about that neither, until just by luck we came on another lame cow. We threw

"The feet is pretty well tore up," says I, "and down to the quick, but I've seen them tore up just as bad on the

You sabe what that meant, don't you? You see, a rustler will take a cow and hobble her, or lame her so she

can't follow, and then he'll take her calf a long ways off and brand it with his iron. Of course, if we was to see

a calf of one brand followin' of a cow with another, it would be just too easy to guess what had happened.

We rode on mighty thoughtful. There couldn't be much doubt that cattle rustlers was at work. The sleepers

they had earmarked, hopin' that no one would discover the lack of a brand. Then, after the calf was weaned,

and quit followin' of his mother, the rustler would brand it with his own iron, and change its earmark to

But it was pretty hard to guess offhand who the rustlers might be. There were a lot of renegades down

towards the Mexican line who made a raid once in a while, and a few oilers [2] livin' near had water holes in

the foothills, and any amount of little cattle holders, like this T 0 outfit, and any of them wouldn't shy very

hard at a little sleeperin' on the side. Buck Johnson told us all to watch out, and passed the word quiet among

the big owners to try and see whose cattle seemed to have too many calves for the number of cows.

The Texas outfit I'm tellin' you about had settled up above in this Double R canon where I showed you those

natural corrals this morning. They'd built them a 'dobe, and cleared some land, and planted a few trees, and

made an irrigated patch for alfalfa. Nobody never rode over his way very much, 'cause the country was most

too rough for cattle, and our ranges lay farther to the southward. Now, however, we began to extend our ridin'

I was down towards Dos Cabesas to look over the cattle there, and they used to send Larry up into the Double

"Look here, Jed," says he, "I know you pretty well, and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm all new at this cattle

businessin fact, I haven't been at it more'n a year. What should be the proportion of cows to calves

"Then, with only about fifty head of grown cows, there ought not to be an equal number of yearlin's?"

"Jed," says he, "I'm not good, like you fellows are, at knowin' one cow from another, but there's a calf down

there branded T 0 that I'd pretty near swear I saw with an X Y cow last month. I wish you could come down

We got that fixed easy enough, and for the next month rammed around through this broken country lookin'

for evidence. I saw enough to satisfy me to a moral certainty, but nothin' for a sheriff; and, of course, we

couldn't go shoot up a peaceful rancher on mere suspicion. Finally, one day, we run on a fourmonths' calf all

"Maybe it's a 'dogie,'" says Larry Eagenwe calls calves whose mothers have died "dogies."

"No," says I, "I don't hardly think so. A dogie is always under size and poor, and he's layin' around water

holes, and he always has a big, sway belly onto him. No, this is no dogie; and, if it's an honest calf, there sure

So we separated to have a good look. Larry rode up on the edge of a little rimrock. In a minute I saw his hoss

jump back, dodgin' a rattlesnake or somethin', and then fall back out of sight. I jumped my hoss up there

tur'ble quick, and looked over, expectin' to see nothin' but mangled remains. It was only about fifteen foot

"Yes, yes!" cries Larry, "but for the love of God, get down here as quick as you can."

"And a bullethole in her forehead," adds Larry. "And, look here, that T 0 calf was baldfaced, and so was

So, there we was. Larry had to lead his cavallo down the barranca to the main canon. I followed along on the

rim, waitin' until a place gave me a chance to get down, too, or Larry a chance to get up. We were talkin' back

"Big game this time," he yells. "Here's a cave and a mountain lion squallin' in it."

I slid down to him at once, and we drew our sixshooters and went up to the cave openin', right under the

rimrock. There, sure enough, were fresh lion tracks, and we could hear a little faint cryin' like woman.

"First chance," claims Larry, and dropped to his hands and knees at the entrance.

"Well, damn me!" he cries, and crawls in at once, payin' no attention to me tellin' him to be more cautious. In

a minute he backs out, carryin' a threeyearold goat. "We seem to he in for adventures today," says he.

"Well," says I, "I've followed lion tracks where they've carried yearlin's across their backs like a fox does a

"As for that," says I, "don't you remember now that T 0 outfit had a yearlin' kid when it came into the

"That's right," says he. "It's only a mile down the canon. I'll take it home. They must be most distracted about

So I scratched up to the top where my pony was waitin'. It was a tur'ble hard climb, and I 'most had to have

hooks on my eyebrows to get up at all. It's easier to slide down than to climb back. I dropped my gun out of

my holster, and she went way to the bottom, but I wouldn't have gone back for six guns. Larry picked it up

So we went along, me on the rimrock and around the barrancas, and Larry in the bottom carryin' of the kid.

By and by we came to the ranch house, stopped to wait. The minute Larry hove in sight everybody was out to

once, and in two winks the woman had that baby. Thy didn't see me at all, but I could hear, plain enough,

what they said. Larry told how he had found her in the cave, and all about the lion tracks, and the woman

cried and held the kid close to her, and thanked him about forty times. Then when she'd wore the edge off a

"You say you found her up the Double R?" asks Hahn. "Was it that cave near the three cottonwoods?"

Larry took his hand. At the same time Hahn pulled his gun and shot him through the middle.

Larry fell forward the way a man mostly will when he's hit in the stomach, but somehow he jerked loose a

gun and got it off twice. He didn't hit nothin', and I reckon he was dead before he hit the ground. And there he

No, sir, you can talk as much as you please, but the killer is a lowdown ornery scub, and he don't hesitate at

Jed Parker ceased talking. The dusk had fallen in the little room, and dimly could be seen the recumbent

figures lying at ease on their blankets. The ranch foreman was sitting bolt upright, crosslegged. A faint glow

"Well, sir, that is the queer part. Hahn himself, who had done the killin', skipped out. We got out warrants, of

course, but they never got served. He was a sort of half outlaw from that time, and was killed finally in the

train holdup of '97. But the others we tried for rustling. We didn't have much of a case, as the law went then,

and they'd have gone free if the woman hadn't turned evidence against them. The killin' was too much for her.

And, as the precedent held good in a lot of other rustlin' cases, Larry's death was really the beginnin' of law

We smoked. The last light suddenly showed red against the grimy window. Windy Bill arose and looked out

"Boys," said he, returning. "She's cleared off. We can get back to the ranch tomorrow."

A cry awakened me. It was still deep night. The moon sailed overhead, the stars shone unwavering like

candles, and a chill breeze wandered in from the open spaces of the desert. I raised myself on my elbow,

throwing aside the blankets and the canvas tarpaulin. Forty other indistinct, formless bundles on the ground

all about me were sluggishly astir. Four figures passed and repassed between me and a red fire. I knew them

"Didn't git in till moonup last night," he growled. "Might as well trade my bed for a lantern and be done

Even as I stretched my arms and shivered a little, the two wranglers threw down their tin plates with a clatter,

mounted horses and rode away in the direction of the thousand acres or so known as the pasture.

I pulled on my clothes hastily, buckled in my buckskin shirt, and dove for the fire. A dozen others were

before me. It was bitterly cold. In the east the sky had paled the least bit in the world, but the moon and stars

shone on bravely and undiminished. A band of coyotes was shrieking desperate blasphemies against the new

Two craterlike dutch ovens, filled with pieces of fried beef, stood near the fire; two galvanised water

buckets, brimming with soda biscuits, flanked them; two tremendous coffee pots stood guard at either end.

We picked us each a tin cup and a tin plate from the box at the rear of the chuck wagon; helped ourselves

from a dutch oven, a pail, and a coffee pot, and squatted on our heels as close to the fire as possible. Men who

came too late borrowed the shovel, scooped up some coals, and so started little fires of their own about which

While we ate, the eastern sky lightened. The mountains under the dawn looked like silhouettes cut from

slatecoloured paper; those in the west showed faintly luminous. Objects about us became dimly visible. We

could make out the windmill, and the adobe of the ranch houses, and the corrals. The cowboys arose one by

one, dropped their plates into the dishpan, and began to hunt out their ropes. Everything was obscure and

mysterious in the faint grey light. I watched Windy Bill near his tarpaulin. He stooped to throw over the

canvas. When he bent, it was before daylight; when he straightened his back, daylight had come. It was just

like that, as though someone had reached out his hand to turn on the illumination of the world.

The eastern mountains were fragile, the plain was ethereal, like a sea of liquid gases. From the pasture we

heard the shoutings of the wranglers, and made out a cloud of dust. In a moment the first of the remuda came

into view, trotting forward with the free grace of the unburdened horse. Others followed in procession: those

near sharp and well defined, those in the background more or less obscured by the dust, now appearing

plainly, now fading like ghosts. The leader turned unhesitatingly into the corral. After him poured the stream

of the remudatwo hundred and fifty saddle horseswith an unceasing thunder of hoofs.

Immediately the cookcamp was deserted. The cowboys entered the corral. The horses began to circle around

the edge of the enclosure as around the circumference of a circus ring. The men, grouped at the centre,

watched keenly, looking for the mounts they had already decided on. In no time each had recognised his

choice, and, his loop trailing, was walking toward that part of the revolving circumference where his pony

dodged. Some few whirled the loop, but most cast it with a quick flip. It was really marvellous to observe the

accuracy with which the noose would fly, past a dozen tossing heads, and over a dozen backs, to settle firmly

about the neck of an animal perhaps in the very centre of the group. But again, if the first throw failed, it was

interesting to see how the selected pony would dodge, double back, twist, turn, and hide to escape second

cast. And it was equally interesting to observe how his companions would help him.

They seemed to realise that they were not wanted, and would push themselves between the cowboy and his

intended mount with the utmost boldness. In the thick dust that instantly arose, and with the bewildering

thunder of galloping, the flashing change of grouping, the rush of the charging animals, recognition alone

would seem almost impossible, yet in an incredibly short time each had his mount, and the others, under

convoy of the wranglers, were meekly wending their way out over the plain. There, until time for a change of

horses, they would graze in a loose and scattered band, requiring scarcely any supervision. Escape? Bless

In the meantime the saddles and bridles were adjusted. Always in a cowboy's "string" of from six to ten

animals the boss assigns him two or three broncos to break in to the cow business. Therefore, each morning

we could observe a half dozen or so men gingerly leading wicked looking little animals out to the sand "to

take the pitch out of them." One small black, belonging to a cowboy called the Judge, used more than to fulfil

"If he ain't goin' to pitch, I ain't goin' to make him", the Judge would grin, as he swung aboard.

The black would trot off quite calmly and in a most matter of fact way, as though to shame all slanderers of

his lamblike character. Then, as the bystanders would turn away, he would utter a squeal, throw down his

head, and go at it. He was a very hard bucker, and made some really spectacular jumps, but the trick on which

he based his claims to originality consisted in standing on his hind legs at so perilous an approach to the

perpendicular that his rider would conclude he was about to fall backwards, and then suddenly springing

forward in a series of stifflegged bucks. The first manoeuvre induced the rider to loosen his seat in order to

be ready to jump from under, and the second threw him before he could regain his grip.

But as these were broken horsessave the mark!the show was all over after each had had his little fling.

We mounted and rode away, just as the mountain peaks to the west caught the rays of a sun we should not

I had five horses in my string, and this morning rode "that C S horse, Brown Jug." Brown Jug was a powerful

and wellbuilt animal, about fourteen two in height, and possessed of a vast enthusiasm for cowwork. As

At the gate of the water corral we separated into two groups. The smaller, under the direction of Jed Parker,

was to drive the mesquite in the wide flats. The rest of us, under the command of Homer, the roundup

captain, were to sweep the country even as far as the base of the foothills near Mount Graham. Accordingly

Mile after mile we thundered along at a brisk rate of speed. Sometimes we dodged in and out among the

mesquite bushes, alternately separating and coming together again; sometimes we swept over grassy plains

apparently of illimitable extent, sometimes we skipped and hopped and buckjumped through and over little

gullies, barrancas, and other sorts of malpaisbut always without drawing rein. The men rode easily, with

no thought to the way nor care for the footing. The air came back sharp against our faces. The warm blood

stirred by the rush flowed more rapidly. We experienced a delightful glow. Of the morning cold only the very

tips of our fingers and the ends of our noses retained a remnant. Already the sun was shining low and level

across the plains. The shadows of the canons modelled the hitherto flat surfaces of the mountains.

After a time we came to some low hills helmeted with the outcrop of a rock escarpment. Hitherto they had

seemed a termination of Mount Graham, but now, when we rode around them, we discovered them to be

separated from the range by a good five miles of sloping plain. Later we looked back and would have sworn

them part of the Dos Cabesas system, did we not know them to be at least eight miles' distant from that rocky

rampart. It is always that way in Arizona. Spaces develop of whose existence you had not the slightest

intimation. Hidden in apparently plane surfaces are valleys and prairies. At one sweep of the eye you embrace

the entire area of an eastern State; but nevertheless the reality as you explore it foot by foot proves to be

Beyond the hill we stopped. Here our party divided again, half to the right and half to the left. We had ridden,

up to this time, directly away from camp, now we rode a circumference of which headquarters was the centre.

The country was pleasantly rolling and covered with grass. Here and there were clumps of soapweed. Far in a

remote distance lay a slender dark line across the plain. This we knew to be mesquite; and once entered, we

knew it, too, would seem to spread out vastly. And then this grassy slope, on which we now rode, would

show merely as an insignificant streak of yellow. It is also like that in Arizona.

I have ridden in succession through grass land, brush land, flower land, desert. Each in turn seemed entirely

From time to time Homer halted us and detached a man. The business of the latter was then to ride directly

back to camp, driving all cattle before him. Each was in sight of his right and lefthand neighbour. Thus

I was detached, when of our party only the Cattleman and Homer remained. They would take the outside.

This was the post of honour, and required the hardest riding, for as soon as the cattle should realise the fact of

their pursuit, they would attempt to "break" past the end and up the valley. Brown Jug and I congratulated

Now, wild cattle know perfectly well what a drive means, and they do not intend to get into a roundup if

they can help it. Were it not for the two facts, that they are afraid of a mounted man, and cannot run quite so

fast as a horse, I do not know how the cattle business would be conducted. As soon as a band of them caught

sight of any one of us, they curled their tails and away they went at a long, easy lope that a domestic cow

would stare at in wonder. This was all very well; in fact we yelled and shrieked and otherwise uttered

cowcalls to keep them going, to "get the cattle started," as they say. But pretty soon a little band of the many

scurrying away before our thin line, began to bear farther and farther to the east. When in their judgment they

should have gained an opening, they would turn directly back and make a dash for liberty. Accordingly the

It was a pretty race. The cattle ran easily enough, with long, springy jumps that carried them over the ground

faster than appearances would lead one to believe. The cowpony, his nose stretched out, his ears slanted, his

eyes snapping with joy of the chase, flew fairly "belly to earth." The rider sat slightly forward, with the

cowboy's loose seat. A whirl of dust, strangely insignificant against the immensity of a desert morning, rose

from the flying group. Now they disappeared in a ravine, only to scramble out again the next instant, pace

undiminished. The rider merely rose slightly and threw up his elbows to relieve the jar of the rough gully. At

first the cattle seemed to hold their, own, but soon the horse began to gain. In a short time he had come

The latter stopped short with a snort, dodged back, and set out at right angles to his former course. From a

dead run the pony came to a stand in two fierce plunges, doubled like a shot, and was off on the other tack.

An unaccustomed rider would here have lost his seat. The second dash was short. With a final shake of the

head, the steers turned to the proper course in the direction of the ranch. The pony dropped unconcernedly to

Far away stretched the arc of our cordon. The most distant rider was a speck, and the cattle ahead of him were

like maggots endowed with a smooth, swift onward motion. As yet the herd had not taken form; it was still

too widely scattered. Its units, in the shape of small bunches, momently grew in numbers. The distant plains

were crawling and alive with minute creatures making toward a common tiny centre.

Immediately in our front the cattle at first behaved very well. Then far down the long gentle slope I saw a

break for the upper valley. The manikin that represented Homer at once became even smaller as it departed in

pursuit. The Cattleman moved down to cover Homer's territory until he should returnand I in turn edged

farther to the right. Then another break from another bunch. The Cattleman rode at top speed to head it.

Before long he disappeared in the distant mesquite. I found myself in sole charge of a front three miles long.

The nearest cattle were some distance ahead, and trotting along at a good gait. As they had not yet discovered

the chance left open by unforeseen circumstance, I descended and took in on my cinch while yet there was

time. Even as I mounted, an impatient movement on the part of experienced Brown Jug told me that the cattle

I gathered the reins and spoke to the horse. He needed no further direction, but set off at a wide angle, nicely

calculated, to intercept the truants. Brown Jug was a powerful beast. The spring of his leap was as whalebone.

The yellow earth began to stream past like water. Always the pace increased with a growing thunder of hoofs.

It seemed that nothing could turn us from the straight line, nothing check the headlong momentum of our

rush. My eyes filled with tears from the wind of our going. Saddle strings streamed behind. Brown Jug's

mane whipped my bridle band. Dimly I was conscious of soapweed, sacatone, mesquite, as we passed them.

They were abreast and gone before I could think of them or how they were to be dodged. Two antelope

bounded away to the left; birds rose hastily from the grasses. A sudden chirk, chirk, chirk, rose all about me.

We were in the very centre of a prairiedog town, but before I could formulate in my mind the probabilities

of holes and broken legs, the chirk, chirk, chirking had fallen astern. Brown Jug had skipped and dodged

We were approaching the cattle. They ran stubbornly and well, evidently unwilling to be turned until the

latest possible moment. A great rage at their obstinacy took possession of us both. A broad shallow wash

crossed our way, but we plunged through its rocks and boulders recklessly, angered at even the slight delay

they necessitated. The hardland on the other side we greeted with joy. Brown Jug extended himself with a

Suddenly a jar seemed to shake my very head loose. I found myself staring over the horse's head directly

down into a deep and precipitous gully, the edge of which was so cunningly concealed by the grasses as to

have remained invisible to my blurred vision. Brown Jug, however, had caught sight of it at the last instant,

But already the cattle had discovered a passage above, and were scrambling down and across. Brown Jug and

I, at more sober pace, slid off the almost perpendicular bank, and out the other side.

A moment later we had headed them. They whirled, and without the necessity of any suggestion on my part

Brown Jug turned after them, and so quickly that my stirrup actually brushed the ground.

After that we were masters. We chased the cattle far enough to start them well in the proper direction, and

But now we noticed another band, back on the ground over which we had just come, doubling through in the

direction of Mount Graham. A hard run set them to rights. We turned. More had poured out from the hills.

Being an indivisible unit, we could chase only one bunch at a time; and, while we were after one, a half

dozen others would be taking advantage of our preoccupation. We could not hold our own. Each run after an

escaping bunch had to be on a longer diagonal. Gradually we were forced back, and back, and back; but still

we managed to hold the line unbroken. Never shall I forget the dash and clatter of that morning. Neither

Brown Jug nor I thought for a moment of sparing horseflesh, nor of picking a route. We made the shortest

line, and paid little attention to anything that stood in the way. A very fever of resistance possessed us. It was

like beating against a head wind, or fighting fire, or combating in any other of the great forces of nature. We

were quite alone. The Cattleman and Homer had vanished. To our left the men were fully occupied in

marshalling the compact brown herds that had gradually massedfor these antagonists of mine were merely

I suppose Brown Jug must have run nearly twenty miles with only one check. Then we chased a cow some

distance and into the dry bed of a stream, where she whirled on us savagely. By luck her horn hit only the

leather of my saddle skirts, so we left her; for when a cow has sense enough to "get on the peck," there is no

driving her farther. We gained nothing, and had to give ground, but we succeeded in holding a semblance of

order, so that the cattle did not break and scatter far and wide. The sun had by now well risen, and was

beginning to shine hot. Brown Jug still ran gamely and displayed as much interest as ever, but he was

evidently tiring. We were both glad to see Homer's grey showing in the fringe of mesquite.

Together we soon succeeded in throwing the cows into the main herd. And, strangely enough, as soon as they

had joined a compact band of their fellows, their wildness left them and, convoyed by outsiders, they set

As my horse was somewhat winded, I joined the "drag" at the rear. Here by course of natural sifting soon

accumulated all the lazy, gentle, and sickly cows, and the small calves. The difficulty now was to prevent

them from lagging and dropping out. To that end we indulged in a great variety of the picturesque cowcalls

peculiar to the cowboy. One found an old tin can which by the aid of a few pebbles he converted into a very

The dust rose in clouds and eddied in the sun. We slouched easily in our saddles. The cowboys compared

notes as to the brands they had seen. Our ponies shuffled along, resting, but always ready for a dash in chase

Thus we passed over the country, down the long gentle slope to the "sink" of the valley, whence another long

gentle slope ran to the base of the other ranges. At greater or lesser distances we caught the dust, and made

out dimly the masses of the other herds collected by our companions, and by the party under Jed Parker. They

went forward toward the common centre, with a slow ruminative movement, and the dust they raised went

Little by little they grew plainer to us, and the home ranch, hitherto merely a brown shimmer in the distance,

began to take on definition as the group of buildings, windmills,and corrals we knew. Miniature horsemen

could be seen galloping forward to the open white plain where the herd would be held. Then the mesquite

enveloped us; and we knew little more, save the anxiety lest we overlook laggards in the brush, until we came

Here were more cattle, thousands of them, and billows of dust, and a great bellowing, and slim, mounted

figures riding and shouting ahead of the herd. Soon they succeeded in turning the leaders back. These threw

into confusion those that followed. In a few moments the cattle had stopped. A cordon of horsemen sat at

It was somewhere near noon by the time we had bunched and held the herd of some four or five thousand

head in the smooth, wide flat, free from bushes and dog holes. Each sat at ease on his horse facing the cattle,

watching lazily the clouds of dust and the shifting beasts, but ready at any instant to turn back the restless or

Out of the haze came Homer, the roundup captain, on an easy lope. As he passed successively the sentries

he delivered to each a low command, but without slacking pace. Some of those spoken to wheeled their

horses and rode away. The others settled themselves in their saddles and began to roll cigarettes.

"Change horses; get something to eat," said he to me; so I swung after the file traveling at a canter over the

The remuda had been driven by its leaders to a corner of the pasture's wire fence, and there held. As each

man arrived he dismounted, threw off his saddle, and turned his animal loose. Then he flipped a loop in his

rope and disappeared in the eddying herd. The discarded horse, with many grunts, indulged in a satisfying

roll, shook himself vigorously, and walked slowly away. His labour was over for the day, and he knew it, and

took not the slightest trouble to get out of the way of the men with the swinging ropes.

Not so the fresh horses, however. They had no intention of being caught, if they could help it, but dodged and

twisted, hid and doubled behind the moving screen of their friends. The latter, seeming as usual to know they

were not wanted, made no effort to avoid the men, which probably accounted in great measure for the fact

that the herd as a body remained compact, in spite of the cowboys threading it, and in spite of the lack of an

Our horses caught, we saddled as hastily as possible; and then at the top speed of our fresh and eager ponies

we swept down on the chuck wagon. There we fell off our saddles and descended on the meat and bread like

ravenous locusts on a cornfield. The ponies stood where we left them, "tied to the ground", the cattlecountry

As soon as a man had stoked up for the afternoon he rode away. Some finished before others, so across the

plain formed an endless procession of men returning to the herd, and of those whom they replaced coming for

We found the herd quiet. Some were even lying down, chewing their cuds as peacefully as any barnyard

cows. Most, however, stood ruminative, or walked slowly to and fro in the confines allotted by the horsemen,

so that the herd looked from a distance like a brown carpet whose pattern was constantly changinga dusty

brown carpet in the process of being beaten. I relieved one of the watchers, and settled myself for a wait.

At this close inspection the different sorts of cattle showed more distinctly their characteristics. The cows and

calves generally rested peacefully enough, the calf often lying down while the mother stood guard over it.

Steers, however, were more restless. They walked ceaselessly, threading their way in and out among the

standing cattle, pausing in brutish amazement at the edge of the herd, and turning back immediately to

endless journeyings. The bulls, excited by so much company forced on their accustomed solitary habit, roared

defiance at each other until the air fairly trembled. Occasionally two would clash foreheads. Then the

powerful animals would push and wrestle, trying for a chance to gore. The decision of supremacy was a

question of but a few minutes, and a bloody topknot the worst damage. The defeated one sidestepped hastily

Most of the time all we had to do was to sit our horses and watch these things, to enjoy the warm bath of the

Arizona sun, and to converse with our next neighbours. Once in a while some enterprising cow, observing the

opening between the men, would start to walk out. Others would fall in behind her until the movement would

become general. Then one of us would swing his leg off the pommel and jog his pony over to head them off.

But one black muley cow, with a calf as black and muley as herself, was more persistent. Time after time,

with infinite patience, she tried it again the moment my back was turned. I tried driving her far into the herd.

No use; she always returned. Quirtings and stones had no effect on her mild and steady persistence.

"She's a San Simon cow," drawled my neighbour. "Everybody knows her. She's at every roundup, just

When the last man had returned from chuck, Homer made the dispositions for the cut. There were present

probably thirty men from the home ranches round about, and twenty representing owners at a distance, here

to pick up the strays inevitable to the season's drift. The roundup captain appointed two men to hold the

cowandcalf cut, and two more to hold the steer cut. Several of us rode into the herd, while the remainder

Little G and I rode slowly among the cattle looking everywhere. The animals moved sluggishly aside to give

us passage, and closed in as sluggishly behind us, so that we were always closely hemmed in wherever we

went. Over the shifting sleek backs, through the eddying clouds of dust, I could make out the figures of my

Our task for the moment was to search out the unbranded J H calves. Since in ranks so closely crowded it

would be physically impossible actually to see an animal's branded flank, we depended entirely on the

Did you ever notice how any animal, tame or wild, always points his ears inquiringly in the direction of

whatever interests or alarms him? Those ears are for the moment his most prominent feature. So when a

brand is quite indistinguishable because, as now, of press of numbers, or, as in winter, from extreme length of

hair, the cropped ears tell plainly the tale of ownership. As every animal is so marked when branded, it

follows that an uncut pair of ears means that its owner has never felt the iron.

So, now we had to look first of all for calves with uncut ears. After discovering one, we had to ascertain his

ownership by examining the earmarks of his mother, by whose side he was sure, in this alarming multitude,

Calves were numerous, and J H cows everywhere to be seen, so in somewhat less than ten seconds I had my

eye on a mother and son. Immediately I turned Little G in their direction. At the slap of my quirt against the

stirrup, all the cows immediately about me shrank suspiciously aside. Little G stepped forward daintily, his

nostrils expanding, his ears working back and forth, trying to the best of his ability to understand which

animals I had selected. The cow and her calf turned in toward the centre of the herd. A touch of the reins

guided the pony. At once he comprehended. From that time on he needed no further directions.

Cautiously, patiently, with great skill, he forced the cow through the press toward the edge of the herd. It had

to be done very quietly, at a foot pace, so as to alarm neither the objects of pursuit nor those surrounding

them. When the cow turned back, Little G somehow happened always in her way. Before she knew it she was

at the outer edge of the herd. There she found herself, with a group of three or four companions, facing the

open plain. Instinctively she sought shelter. I felt Little G's muscles tighten beneath me. The moment for

action had come. Before the cow had a chance to dodge among her companions the pony was upon her like a

thunderbolt. She broke in alarm, trying desperately to avoid the rush. There ensued an exciting contest of

dodgings, turnings,and doublings. Wherever she turned Little G was before her. Some of his evolutions were

marvellous. All I had to do was to sit my saddle, and apply just that final touch of judgment denied even the

wisest of the lower animals. Time and again the turn was so quick that the stirrup swept the ground. At last

the cow, convinced of the uselessness of further effort to return, broke away on a long lumbering run to the

open plain. She was stopped and held by the men detailed, and so formed the nucleus of the new cutherd.

Immediately Little G, his ears working in conscious virtue, jogtrotted back into the herd, ready for another.

After a dozen cows had been sent across to the cutherd, the work simplified. Once a cow caught sight of this

new band, she generally made directly for it, head and tail up. After the first short struggle to force her from

the herd, all I had to do was to start her in the proper direction and keep her at it until her decision was fixed.

If she was too soon left to her own devices, however, she was likely to return. An old cowman knows to a

Sometimes, in spite of our best efforts a cow succeeded in circling us and plunging into the main herd. The

temptation was then strong to plunge in also, and to drive her out by main force; but the temptation had to be

resisted. A dash into the thick of it might break the whole band. At once, of his own accord, Little G dropped

to his fast, shuffling walk, and again we addressed ourselves to the task of pushing her gently to the edge.

This was all comparatively simplealmost any pony is fast enough for the calf cutbut now Homer gave

orders for the steer cut to begin, and steers are rapid and resourceful and full of natural cussedness. Little G

and I were relieved by Windy Bill, and betook ourselves to the outside of the herd.

Here we had leisure to observe the effects that up to this moment we had ourselves been producing. The herd,

restless by reason of the horsemen threading it, shifted, gave ground, expanded, and contracted, so that its

shape and size were always changing in the constant area guarded by the sentinel cowboys. Dust arose from

these movements, clouds of it, to eddy and swirl, thicken and dissipate in the currents of air. Now it

concealed all but the nearest dimlyoutlined animals; again it parted in rifts through which mistily we

discerned the riders moving in and out of the fog; again it lifted high and thin, so that we saw in clarity the

whole herd and the outriders and the mesas far away. As the afternoon waned, long shafts of sun slanted

through this dust. It played on men and beasts magically, expanding them to the dimensions of strange genii,

appearing and effacing themselves in the billows of vapour from some enchanted bottle.

We on the outside found our sinecure of hot noontide filched from us by the cooler hours. The cattle,

wearied of standing, and perhaps somewhat hungry and thirsty, grew more and more impatient. We rode

continually back and forth, turning the slow movement in on itself. Occasionally some particularly

enterprising cow would conclude that one or another of the cutherds would suit her better than this mill of

turmoil. She would start confidently out, head and tail up, find herself chased back, get stubborn on the

question, and lead her pursuer a long, hard run before she would return to her companions. Once in a while

one would even have to be roped and dragged back. For know, before something happens to you, that you

can chase a cow safely only until she gets hot and winded. Then she stands her ground and gets emphatically

I remember very well when I first discovered this. It was after I had had considerable cow work, too. I

thought of cows as I had always seen themafraid of a horseman, easy to turn with the pony, and willing to

be chased as far as necessary to the work. Nobody told me anything different. One day we were making a

drive in an exceedingly broken country. I was bringing in a small bunch I had discovered in a pocket of the

hills, but was excessively annoyed by one old cow that insisted on breaking back. In the wisdom of further

experience, I now conclude that she probably had a calf in the brush. Finally she got away entirely. After

Well, the cow and I ran nearly side by side for as much as half a mile at top speed. She declined to be headed.

"Now, old girl, I've got you!" said I, and set myself to urging her to her feet.

The pony acted somewhat astonished, and suspicious of the job. Therein he knew a lot more than I did. But I

insisted, and, like a good pony, he obeyed. I yelled at the cow, and slapped my bat, and used my quirt. When

she had quite recovered her wind, she got slowly to her feetand charged me in a most determined manner.

Now, a bull, or a steer, is not difficult to dodge. He lowers his head, shuts his eyes, and comes in on one

straight rush. But a cow looks to see what she is doing; her eyes are open every minute, and it overjoys her to

The pony I was riding did his best, but even then could not avoid a sharp prod that would have ripped him up

had not my leather bastos intervened. Then we retired to a distance in order to plan further; but we did not

succeed in inducing that cow to revise her ideas, so at last we left her. When, in some chagrin, I mentioned to

"Why, kid," said he, "you can't do nothin' with a cow that gets on the prod that away 'thout you ropes her; and

After the steer cut had been finished, the men representing the neighbouring ranges looked through the herd

for strays of their brands. These were thrown into the strayherd, which had been brought up from the bottom

lands to receive the new accessions. Work was pushed rapidly, as the afternoon was nearly gone.

In fact, so absorbed were we that until it was almost upon us we did not notice a heavy thundershower that

arose in the region of the Dragoon Mountains, and swept rapidly across the zenith. Before we knew it the rain

had begun. In ten seconds it had increased to a deluge, and in twenty we were all to leeward of the herd

We did everything in our power to stop them, but in vain. Slickers waved, quirts slapped against leather,

sixshooters flashed, but still the cattle, heads lowered, advanced with slow and sullen persistence that would

not be stemmed. If we held our ground, they divided around us. Step by step we were forced to give

waythe thin line of nervously plunging horses sprayed before the dense mass of the cattle.

"No, they won't stampede," shouted Charley to my question. "There's cows and calves in them. If they was

The sensations of those few moments were very vividthe blinding beat of the storm in my face, the

unbroken front of horned heads bearing down on me, resistless as fate, the long slant of rain with the sun

Abruptly the downpour ceased. We shook our hats free of water, and drove the herd back to the cutting

But now the surface of the ground was slippery, and the rapid manoeuvring of horses had become a matter

precarious in the extreme. Time and again the ponies fairly sat on their haunches and slid when negotiating a

sudden stop, while quick turns meant the rapid scramblings that only a cowhorse could accomplish.

Nevertheless the work went forward unchecked. The men of the other outfits cut their cattle into the

strayherd. The latter was by now of considerable size, for this was the third week of the roundup.

Finally everyone expressed himself as satisfied. The largely diminished main herd was now started forward

by means of shrill cowboy cries and beating of quirts. The cattle were only too eager to go. From my position

on a little rise above the strayherd I could see the leaders breaking into a run, their heads thrown forward as

they snuffed their freedom. On the mesa side the sentinel riders quietly withdrew. From the rear and flanks

the horsemen closed in. The cattle poured out in a steady stream through the opening thus left on the mesa

side. The fringe of cowboys followed, urging them on. Abruptly the cavalcade turned and came loping back.

The cattle continued ahead on a trot, gradually spreading abroad over the landscape, losing their integrity as a

herd. Some of the slower or hungrier dropped out and began to graze. Certain of the more wary disappeared

Now, after the day's work was practically over, we had our first accident. The horse ridden by a young fellow

from Dos Cabesas slipped, fell, and rolled quite over his rider. At once the animal lunged to his feet, only to

he immediately seized by the nearest rider. But the Dos Cabesas man lay still, his arms and legs spread

abroad, his head doubled sideways in a horribly suggestive manner. We hopped off. Two men straightened

He pointed to the indentation left by the pommel. Indeed five minutes brought the man to his senses. He

complained of a very twisted back. Homer set one of the men in after the bedwagon, by means of which the

sufferer was shortly transported to camp. By the end of the week he was again in the saddle. How men escape

from this common accident with injuries so slight has always puzzled me. The horse rolls completely over his

rider, and yet it seems to be the rarest thing in the world for the latter to be either killed or permanently

Now each man had the privilege of looking through the J H cuts to see if by chance steers of his own had

been included in them. When all had expressed themselves as satisfied, the various bands were started to the

From a slight eminence where I had paused to enjoy the evening I looked down on the scene. The three herds,

separated by generous distance one from the other, crawled leisurely along; the riders, their hats thrust back,

lolled in their saddles, shouting conversation to each other, relaxing after the day's work; through the clouds

strong shafts of light belittled the living creatures, threw into proportion the vastness of the desert.

It was dark night. The stayherd bellowed frantically from one of the big corrals; the cowandcalfherd

from a second. Already the remuda, driven in from the open plains, scattered about the thousand acres of

pasture. Away from the conveniences of fence and corral, men would have had to patrol all night. Now,

Probably forty cowboys were in the group, representing all types, from old John, who had been in the

business forty years, and had punched from the Rio Grande to the Pacific, to the Kid, who would have given

his chance of salvation if he could have been taken for ten years older than he was. At the moment Jed Parker

was holding forth to his friend Johnny Stone in reference to another old crony who had that evening joined

"Johnny," inquired Jed with elaborate gravity, and entirely ignoring the presence of the subject of

conversation, "what is that thing just beyond the fire, and where did it come from?"

"That?" he replied. "Oh, this evenin' the dogs see something run down a hole, and they dug it out, and that's

"The trouble with you fellows," he proffered "is that you're so plumb alkalied you don't know the real thing

Under cover of the laugh, the newcomer made a raid on the dutch ovens and pails. Having filled his plate, he

squatted on his heels and fell to his belated meal. He was a tall, slabsided individual, with a lean, leathery

face, a sweeping white moustache, and a grave and sardonic eye. His leather chaps were plain and worn, and

his hat had been fashioned by time and wear into much individuality. I was not surprised to hear him

"Just ask him how he got that game foot," suggested Johnny Stone to me in an undertone, so, of course, I did

not. Later someone told me that the lameness resulted from his refusal of an urgent invitation to return across

a river. Mr. Sacatone Bill happened not to be riding his own horse at the time. The Cattleman dropped down

"I wish," said he in a low voice, "we could get that fellow talking. He is a queer one. Pretty well educated

apparently. Claims to be writing a book of memoirs. Sometimes he will open up in good shape, and

sometimes he will not. It does no good to ask him direct, and he is as shy as an old crow when you try to lead

A man was playing on the mouth organ. He played excellently well, with all sorts of variations and frills. We

smoked in silence. The deep rumble of the cattle filled the air with its diapason. Always the shrill coyotes

raved out in the mesquite. Sacatone Bill had finished his meal, and had gone to sit by Jed Parker, his old

friend. They talked together lowvoiced. The evening grew, and the eastern sky silvered over the mountains

A dead silence fell on the circle. Everybody shifted position the better to listen to the story of Sacatone Bill.

About ten year ago I got plumb sick of punchin' cows around my part of the country. She hadn't rained since

Noah, and I'd forgot what water outside a pail or a trough looked like. So I scouted around inside of me to see

what part of the world I'd jump to, and as I seemed to know as little of Colorado and minin' as anything else, I

made up the pint of bean soup I call my brains to go there. So I catches me a buyer at Henson and turns over

my pore little bunch of cattle and prepared to fly. The last day I hauled up about twenty good buckets of

water and threw her up against the cabin. My buyer was settin' his hoss waitin' for me to get ready. He didn't

"Mr. Hicks," says he, hesitatin' like, "I find it a good rule in this country not to overlook other folks' plays,

but I'd take it mighty kind if you'd explain those actions of yours with the pails of water."

"Mr. Jones," says I, "it's very simple. I built that shack five year ago,and it's never rained since. I just wanted

So I quit Arizona, and in about a week I see my reflection in the winders of a little place called Cyanide in the

Fellows, she was a bird. They wasn't a pony in sight, nor a squar' foot of land that wasn't either street or

straight up. It made me plumb lonesome for a country where you could see a long ways even if you didn't see

much. And this early in the evenin' they wasn't hardly anybody in the streets at all.

I took a look at them dark, gloomy, old mountains, and a sniff at a breeze that would have frozen the

whiskers of hope, and I made a dive for the nearest lit winder. They was a sign over it that just said:

I was glad they labelled her. I'd never have known it. They had a fifteenyear old kid tendin' bar, no games

"Sorry to disturb your repose, bub," says I, "but see if you can sort out any rye among them collections of

I took a drink, and then another to keep it companyI was beginnin' to sympathise with anythin' lonesome.

Sure enough, there was a girl settin' on the pianner stool, another in a chair, and a nice shiny Jew drummer

danglin' his feet from a table. They looked up when they see me come in, and went right on talkin'.

I looked at him a minute, but I see he'd been raised a pet, and then, too, I was so hungry for sassiety I was

"Interdooce me," says the drummer in a kind of a way that made them all laugh a heap.

I walked up to her, jerked out my guns, and reached around both sides of her to the pianner. I run the muzzles

up and down the keyboard two or three times, and then shot out half a dozen keys.

The girl at the pianner just grinned, and pointed to the winder where they was some ragged glass hangin'. She

"Say, Susie," says I, "you're all right, but your friends is tur'ble. I may be rough, and I ain't never been curried

So we had a drink at the bar, and started out to investigate the wonders of Cyanide.

Say, that night was a wonder. Susie faded after about three drinks, but I didn't seem to mind that. I hooked up

to another saloon kept by a thin Dutchman. A fat Dutchman is stupid, but a thin one is all right.

In ten minutes I had more friends in Cyanide than they is fiddlers in hell. I begun to conclude Cyanide wasn't

so lonesome. About four o'clock in comes a little Irishman about four foot high, with more upper lip than a

muley cow,and enough red hair to make an artificial aurorer borealis. He had big red hands with freckles

pasted onto them, and stiff red hairs standin' up separate and lonesome like signal stations. Also his legs was

Now, this was none of my town, so I just stepped back of the end of the bar quick where I wouldn't stop no

"Probably Dutchy didn't take no note of what the locoed little dogie DID say," thinks I to myself.

"Look here!" he yells. "Listen to what I'm tellin' ye! God bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle! Do ye hear

At that my soul just grew sick. I asked the man next to me why Dutchy didn't kill the little fellow.

That settled it with me. I left that place, and went home,and it wasn't more than four o'clock, neither. No, I

don't call four o'clock late. It may be a little late for night before last, but it's just the shank of the evenin' for

Well, it took me six weeks and two days to go broke. I didn't know sic em, about minin'; and before long I

KNEW that I didn't 'know sic 'em. Most all day I poked around them mountainsnot like our'ntoo much

timber to be comfortable. At night I got to droppin' in at Dutchy's. He had a couple of quiet games goin', and

they was one fellow among that lot of grubbin' prairie dogs that had heerd tell that cows had horns. He was

the wisest of the bunch on the cattle business. So I stowed away my consolation, and made out to forget

About three times a week this Irishman I told you ofname O'Toolecomes bulgin' in. When he was sober

he talked minin' high, wide, and handsome. When he was drunk he pounded both fists on the bar and yelled

"God bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle!" he yells about six times. "Say, do you hear?"

I was plumb sorry for O'Toole. I'd like to have given him a run; but, of course, I couldn't take it up without

makin' myself out a friend of this Dutchy party, and I couldn't stand for that. But I did tackle Dutchy about it

"Dutchy," says I, "what makes you let that bowlegged cross between a bulldog and a flamin' red sunset

"Just you hold on" says he. "I ain't ready yet. Bimeby I make him sick; also those others who laugh with

He had a little grey flicker in his eye, and I thinks to myself that maybe they'd get Dutchy on the peck yet.

As I said, I went broke in just six weeks and two days. And I was broke a plenty. No holdouts anywhere. It

was a heap long ways to cows; and I'd be teetotally chawed up and spit out if I was goin' to join these minin'

While I was figurin' what next, Dutchy came in. Which I was tur'ble surprised at that, but I said

"Hosses! Sure!" I yells, jumpin' up. "You bet you! Why, hosses is where I live! What hosses do you want?"

"What?" says I. "Elucidate, my bucko. I don't take no such blanket order. Spread your cards."

"I mean just that," says he. "I want you to buy all the hosses in this camp, and in the mountains. Every one."

"Come with me, then," says he. I hadn't but just got up, but I went with him to his little old poison factory. Of

course, I hadn't had no breakfast; but he staked me to a Kentucky breakfast. What's a Kentucky breakfast?

Why, a Kentucky breakfast is a threepound steak, a bottle of whisky, and a setter dog. What's the dog for?

We come to an agreement. I was to get twofifty a head commission. So I started out. There wasn't many

hosses in that country, and what there was the owners hadn't much use for unless it was to work a whim. I

At the end of a week I had a remuda of probably two hundred animals. We kept them over the hills in some

"parks," as these sots call meadows in that country. I rode into town and told Dutchy.

When I hit Cyanide again I ran into scenes of wild excitement. The whole passel of them was on that one

street of their'n, talkin' sixteen ounces to the pound. In the middle was Dutchy, drunk as a soldierjust plain

"Good Lord!" thinks I to myself, "he ain't celebratin' gettin' that bunch of buzzards, is he?"

But I found he wasn't that bad. When he caught sight of me, he fell on me drivellin'.

Dear Dutchy:I suppose you thought I'd flew the coop, but I haven't and this is to prove it. Pack up your

outfit and hit the trail. I've made the biggest free gold strike you ever see. I'm sending you specimens. There's

tons just like it, tons and tons. I got all the claims I can hold myself; but there's heaps more. I've writ to

Johnny and Ed at Denver to come on. Don't give this away. Make tracks. Come in to Buck Canon in the

Somebody showed me a handful of white rock with yeller streaks in it. His eyes was bulgin' until you could

have hung your hat on them. That O'Toole party was walkin' around, wettin' his lips with his tongue and

"God bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle!" says he. "And the fool had to get drunk and give it away!"

The excitement was just started, but it didn't last long. The crowd got the same notion at the same time, and it

I went home. Pretty soon a fellow named Jimmy Tack come around a little out of breath.

"Say, you know that buckskin you bought off'n me?" says he, "I want to buy him back."

"Yes," says he. "I've got to leave town for a couple of days, and I got to have somethin' to pack."

"Look here," he stops me with. "How about that bay mare I sold you? Can you call that sale off? I got to

"Oh, yes," says I when he opens his mouth. "I know all your troubles. You have to leave town for a couple of

After that I had to quit the main street and dodge back of the hog ranch. They was all headed my way. I was

"I wanted to keep them for the valley market," says he, "butHow much did you give Jimmy Tack for his

"Well, let him have it for eighty," says Dutchy; "and the others in proportion."

"Holy smoke!" says I, gettin' my breath. "If you mean that, Dutchy, you lend me another gun and give me a

He done so, and I went back home to where the whole camp of Cyanide was waitin'.

I got up and made them a speech and told them I'd sell them hosses all right, and to come back. Then I got an

Injin boy to help, and we rustled over the remuda and held them in a blind canon. Then I called up these

miners one at a time, and made bargains with them. Roar! Well, you could hear them at Denver, they tell me,

and the weather reports said, "Thunder in the mountains." But it was cash on delivery, and they all paid up.

They had seen that white quartz with the gold stickin' into it, and that's the same as a dose of loco to miner

Why didn't I take a hoss and start first? I did think of itfor about one second. I wouldn't stay in that country

then for a million dollars a minute. I was plumb sick and loathin' it, and just waitin' to make high jumps back

to Arizona. So I wasn't aimin' to join this stampede, and didn't have no vivid emotions.

They got to fightin' on which should get the first hoss; so I bent my gun on them and made them draw lots.

They roared some more, but done so; and as fast as each one handed over his dust or dinero he made a rush

for his cabin, piled on his saddle and pack, and pulled his freight on a cloud of dust. It was sure a grand

So by sundown I was alone with the Injin. Those two hundred head brought in about twenty thousand dollars.

It was heavy, but I could carry it. I was about alone in the landscape; and there were the two best hosses I had

saved out for Dutchy. I was sure some tempted. But I had enough to get home on anyway; and I never yet

drank behind the bar, even if I might hold up the saloon from the floor. So I grieved some inside that I was so

"Well," says he, and I noted that jag of his had flew. "You see, I was behind that rock up there, and I had you

"But if you don't get a wiggle on you, you are sure goin' to get left on those gold claims," says I.

"Oh, yes, there's a Buck Canon," he allows. "Nice limestone formationmake good hard water."

"Now," says he, "I'm goin' to take one of those hosses and go somewheres else. Maybe you'd better do

He turned around and taked up the paper he was carryin'. It was a sign. It read:

"Nice sentiment," says I. "It will be appreciated when the crowd comes back from that little pasear into Buck

Canon. But why not tack her up where the trail hits the camp? Why on this particular door?"

"Well," said Dutchy, squintin' at the sign sideways, "you see I sold this place day before yesterdayto Mike

All that night we slept like sticks of wood. No dreams visited us, but in accordance with the immemorial

habit of those who live outwhether in the woods, on the plains, among the mountains, or at seaonce

during the night each of us rose on his elbow, looked about him, and dropped back to sleep. If there had been

a fire to replenish, that would have been the moment to do so; if the wind had been changing and the seas

rising, that would have been the time to cast an eye aloft for indications, to feel whether the anchor cable was

holding; if the packhorses had straggled from the alpine meadows under the snows, this would have been

the occasion for intent listening for the faintly tinkling hell so that next day one would know in which

direction to look. But since there existed for us no responsibility, we each reported dutifully at the rollcall of

I remember the moon sailing a good gait among apparently stationary cloudlets; I recall a deep, black shadow

lying before distant silvery mountains; I glanced over the stark, motionless canvases, each of which

Seemingly but a moment later the cook's howl brought me to consciousness again. A clear, licking little fire

I piled out and joined the group. Homer was busy distributing his men for the day. Three were to care for the

remuda; five were to move the strayherd from the corrals to good feed; three branding crews were told to

brand the calves we had collected in the cut of the afternoon before. That took up about half the men. The rest

were to make a short drive in the salt grass. I joined the Cattleman, and together we made our way afoot to

We were the only ones who did go afoot, however, although the corrals were not more than two hundred

yards' distant. When we arrived we found the string of ponies standing around outside. Between the upright

bars of greasewood we could see the cattle, and near the opposite side the men building a fire next the fence.

We pushed open the wide gate and entered. The three ropers sat their horses, idly swinging the loops of their

ropes back and forth. Three others brought wood and arranged it craftily in such manner as to get best

draught for heatin,a good branding fire is most decidedly a work of art. One stood waiting for them to

finish, a sheaf of long JH stamping irons in his hand. All the rest squatted on their heels along the fence,

smoking cigarettes ad chatting together. The first rays of the sun slanted across in one great sweep from the

In ten minutes Charley pronounced the irons ready. Homer, Wooden, and old California John rode in among

the cattle. The rest of the men arose and stretched their legs and advanced. The Cattleman and I climbed to

Each rider swung his rope above his head with one hand, keeping the broad loop open by a skilful turn of the

wrist at the end of each revolution. In a moment Homer leaned forward and threw. As the loop settled, he

jerked sharply upward, exactly as one would strike to hook a big fish. This tightened the loop and prevented it

from slipping off. Immediately, and without waiting to ascertain the result of the manoeuvre, the horse turned

and began methodically, without undue haste, to walk toward the branding fire. Homer wrapped the rope

twice or thrice about the horn, and sat over in one stirrup to avoid the tightened line and to preserve the

balance. Nobody paid any attention to the calf. The critter had been caught by the two hind legs. As the rope

tightened, he was suddenly upset, and before he could realise that something disagreeable was happening, he

was sliding majestically along on his belly. Behind him followed his anxious mother, her head swinging from

Near the fire the horse stopped. The two "bulldoggers" immediately pounced upon the victim. It was

promptly flopped over on its right side. One knelt on its head and twisted back its foreleg in a sort of

hammerlock; the other seized one hind foot, pressed his boot heel against the other hind leg close to the

body, and sat down behind the animal. Thus the calf was unable to struggle. When once you have had the

wind knocked out of you, or a rib or two broken, you cease to think this unnecessarily rough. Then one or the

Immediately two men ran forward. The brander pressed the iron smoothly against the flank. A smoke and the

smell of scorching hair arose. Perhaps the calf blatted a little as the heat scorched. In a brief moment it was

over. The brand showed cherry, which is the proper colour to indicate due peeling and a successful mark.

In the meantime the marker was engaged in his work. First, with a sharp knife he cut off slanting the upper

quarter of one ear. Then he nicked out a swallowtail in the other. The pieces he thrust into his pocket in

order that at the completion of the work he could thus check the Cattleman's tallyboard as to the number of

calves branded.[3] The bulldogger let go. The calf sprang up, was appropriated and smelled over by his

[3] For the benefit of the squeamish it might be well to note that the fragments of the ears were cartilaginous,

It seems to me that a great deal of unnecessary twaddle is abroad as to the extreme cruelty of branding.

Undoubtedly it is to some extent painful, and could some other method of ready identification be devised, it

might be as well to adopt it in preference. But in the circumstance of a free range, thousands of cattle, and

hundreds of owners, any other method is out of the question. I remember a New England movement looking

toward small brass tags to be hung from the ear. Inextinguishable laughter followed the spread of this

doctrine through Arizona. Imagine a puncher descending to examine politely the eartags of wild cattle on

But, as I have intimated, even the inevitable branding and earmarking are not so painful as one might

suppose. The scorching hardly penetrates below the outer tough skinonly enough to kill the roots of the

hairbesides which it must be remembered that cattle are not so sensitive as the higher nervous organisms.

A calf usually bellows when the iron bites, but as soon as released he almost invariably goes to feeding or to

looking idly about. Indeed, I have never seen one even take the trouble to lick his wounds, which is certainly

not true in the case of the injuries they inflict on each other in fighting. Besides which, it happens but once in

a lifetime, and is over in ten seconds; a comfort denied to those of us who have our teeth filled.

In the meantime two other calves had been roped by the two other men. One of the little animals was but a

few months old, so the rider did not bother with its hind legs, but tossed his loop over its neck. Naturally,

when things tightened up, Mr. Calf entered his objections, which took the form of most vigorous bawlings,

and the most comical bucking, pitching, cavorting, and bounding in the air. Mr. Frost's bullcalf alone in

pictorial history shows the attitudes. And then, of course, there was the gorgeous contrast between all this

frantic and uncomprehending excitement and the absolute matteroffact imperturbability of horse and rider.

Once at the fire, one of the men seized the tightened rope in one hand, reached well over the animal's back to

get a slack of the loose hide next the belly, lifted strongly, and tripped. This is called "bulldogging." As he

knew his business, and as the calf was a small one, the little beast went over promptly, bit the ground with a

Such good luck did not always follow, however. An occasional and exceedingly husky bull yearling declined

to be upset in any such manner. He would catch himself on one foot, scramble vigorously, and end by

struggling back to the upright. Then ten to one he made a dash to get away. In such case he was generally

snubbed up short enough at the end of the rope; but once or twice he succeeded in running around a group

absorbed in branding. You can imagine what happened next. The rope, attached at one end to a conscientious

and immovable horse and at the other to a reckless and vigorous little bull, swept its taut and destroying way

about midknee high across that group. The brander and marker, who were standing, promptly sat down

hard; the bulldoggers, who were sitting, immediately turned several most capable somersaults; the other calf

arose and inextricably entangled his rope with that of his accomplice. Hot irons, hot language, and dust filled

Another method, and one requiring slightly more knack, is to grasp the animal's tail and throw it by a quick

jerk across the pressure of the rope. This is productive of some fun if it fails.

By now the branding was in full swing. The three horses came and went phlegmatically. When the nooses

fell, they turned and walked toward the fire as a matter of course. Rarely did the cast fail. Men ran to and fro

busy and intent. Sometimes three or four calves were on the ground at once. Cries arose in a confusion:

"Marker" "Hot iron!" "Tally one!" Dust eddied and dissipated. Behind all were clear sunlight and the organ

"No more necked calves," they announced. "Catch 'em by the hind legs, or bulldog 'em yourself."

And that went. Once in a while the rider, lazy, or careless, or bothered by the press of numbers, dragged up a

victim caught by the neck. The bulldoggers flatly refused to have anything to do with it. An obvious way

out would have been to flip off the loop and try again; but of course that would have amounted to a

"You fellows drive me plumb weary," remarked the rider, slowly dismounting. "A little bit of a calf like that!

Then he would spit on his hands and go at it alone. If luck attended his first effort, his sarcasm was profound.

"There's yore little calf," said he. "Would you like to have me tote it to you, or do you reckon you could

But if the calf gave much trouble, then all work ceased while the unfortunate puncher wrestled it down.

Toward noon the work slacked. Unbranded calves were scarce. Sometimes the men rode here and there for a

minute or so before their eyes fell on a pair of uncropped ears. Finally Homer rode over to the Cattleman and

The markers, squatted on their heels, told over the bits of ears they had saved. The total amounted to but an

hundred and seventyfive. Everybody went to searching for the missing bit. It was not forthcoming. Finally

"Felt her thar all the time," said he, "but thought it must shorely be a chaw of tobacco."

This matter satisfactorily adjusted, the men all ran for their ponies. They had been doing a wrestler's heavy

work all the morning, but did not seem to be tired. I saw once in some crank physical culture periodical that a

cowboy's life was physically illbalanced, like an oarsman's, in that it exercised only certain muscles of the

Through the wide gates the cattle were urged out to the open plain. There they were held for over an hour

while the cows wandered about looking for their lost progeny. A cow knows her calf by scent and sound, not

Finally the last and most foolish cow found the last and most foolish calf. We turned the herd loose to hunt

About a week later, in the course of the roundup, we reached the valley of the Box Springs, where we

camped for some days at the dilapidated and abandoned adobe structure that had once been a ranch house of

Just at dusk one afternoon we finished cutting the herd which our morning's drive had collected. The

strayherd, with its new additions from the day's work, we pushed rapidly into one big stock corral. The cows

and unbranded calves we urged into another. Fifty head of beef steers found asylum from dust, heat, and

racing to and fro, in the mile square wire enclosure called the pasture. All the remainder, for which we had no

further use we drove out of the flat into the brush and toward the distant mountains. Then we let them go as

By now the desert bad turned slatecoloured, and the brush was olive green with evening. The hard,

uncompromising ranges, twenty miles to eastward, had softened behind a wonderful veil of purple and pink,

vivid as the chiffon of a girl's gown. To the south and southwest the Chiricahuas and Dragoons were lost in

We jogged homewards, our cutting ponies, tired with the quick, sharp work, shuffling knee deep in a dusk

that seemed to disengage itself and rise upwards from the surface of the desert. Everybody was hungry and

tired. At the chuck wagon we threw off our saddles and turned the mounts into the remuda. Some of the

wisest of us, remembering the thunderclouds, stacked our gear under the veranda roof of the old ranch house.

Supper was ready. We seized the tin battery, filled the plates with the meat, bread, and canned corn, and

squatted on our heels. The food was good, and we ate hugely in silence. When we could hold no more we lit

pipes. Then we had leisure to notice that the storm cloud was mounting in a portentous silence to the zenith,

"Rolls" were scattered everywhere. A roll includes a cowboy's bed and all of his personal belongings. When

As soon as we had come to a definite conclusion that it was going to rain, we deserted the camp fire and went

rustling for our blankets. At the end of ten minutes every bed was safe within the doors of the abandoned

adobe ranch house, each owner recumbent on the floor claim he had preempted, and every man hoping

Ordinarily we had depended on the light of camp fires, so now artificial illumination lacked. Each man was

indicated by the alternately glowing and waning lozenge of his cigarette fire. Occasionally someone struck a

match, revealing for a moment highlights on bronzed countenances, and the silhouette of a shading hand.

Voices spoke disembodied. As the conversation developed, we gradually recognised the membership of our

own roomful. I had forgotten to state that the ranch house included four chambers. Outside, the rain roared

with Arizona ferocity. Inside, men congratulated themselves, or swore as leaks developed and localised.

Naturally we talked first of stampedes. Cows and bears are the two great cattlecountry topics. Then we had

a mouthorgan solo or two, which naturally led on to songs. My turn came. I struck up the first verse of a

I had just gone so far when I was brought up short by a tremendous oath behind me. At the same instant a

match flared. I turned to face a stranger holding the little light above his head, and peering with fiery

He was evidently just in from the storm. His dripping hat lay at his feet. A shock of straight, closeclipped

vigorous hair stood up grey above his seamed forehead. Bushy irongrey eyebrows drawn close together

thatched a pair of burning, unquenchable eyes. A square, deep jaw, lightly stubbled with grey, was clamped

Then the match burned his thick, square fingers, and he dropped it into the darkness that ascended to swallow

"Who was singing that song?" he cried harshly. Nobody answered. "Who was that singing?" he demanded

Another match was instantly lit and thrust into my very face. I underwent the fierce scrutiny of an instant,

Before replying, the newcomer lit a third match, searching for a place to sit down. As he bent forward, his

"Well," insisted the first voice, "what in hell does Colorado Rogers mean by bustin' in on our song fiesta that

"Tell them, Rogers," advised the Cattleman, "tell themjust as you told it down on the Gila ten years ago

"You don't know me," replied the Cattleman, "but I was with Buck Johnson's outfit then. Give us the yarn."

He rolled and lit a cigarette, while I revelled in the memory of his rich, great voice. It was of the sort made to

declaim against the sea or the rush of rivers or, as here, the fall of waters and the thunderfull, from the

chest, with the caressing throat vibration that gives colour to the most ordinary statements. After ten words

we sank back oblivious of the storm, forgetful of the leaky roof and the dirty floor, lost in the story told us by

I came from Texas, like the bulk of you punchers, but a good while before the most of you were born. That

was fortyodd years agoand I've been on the Colorado River ever since. That's why they call me Colorado

Rogers. About a dozen of us came out together. We had all been Texas Rangers, but when the war broke out

we were out of a job. We none of us cared much for the Johnny Rebs, and still less for the Yanks, so we

Well, we got switched off one way and another. When we got down to about where Douglas is now, we

found that the Mexican Government was offering a bounty for Apache scalps. That looked pretty good to us,

for Injin chasing was our job, so we started in to collect. Did pretty well, too, for about three months, and

then the Injins began to get too scarce, or too plenty in streaks. Looked like our job was over with, but some

of the boys discovered that Mexicans, having straight black hair, you couldn't tell one of their scalps from an

Apache's. After that the bounty business picked up for a while. It was too much for me, though, and I quit the

At that time the California immigrants by the southern route used to cross just there, and these Yuma Injins

had a monopoly on the ferry business. They were a peaceful, finelooking lot, without a thing on but a

geestring. The women had belts with rawhide strings hanging to the knees. They put them on one over the

other until they didn't feel too decollotey. It wasn't until the soldiers came that the officers' wives got them to

wear handkerchiefs over their breasts. The system was all right, though. They wallowed around in the hot,

clean sand, like chickens, and kept healthy. Since they took to wearing clothes they've been petering out, and

They ran this ferry monopoly by means of boats made of tules, charged a scand'lous low price, and

everything was happy and lovely. I ran on a little bar and panned out some dust, so I camped a while,

washing gold, getting friendly with the Yumas, and talking horse and other things with the immigrants.

About a month of this, and the Texas boys drifted in. Seems they sort of overdid the scalp matter, and got

found out. When they saw me, they stopped and went into camp. They'd travelled a heap of desert, and were

getting sick of it. For a while they tried gold washing, but I had the only pocketand that was about skinned.

One evening a fellow named Walleye announced that he had been doing some figuring, and wanted to make a

"Now look here," said he, "what's the use of going to California? Why not stay here?"

"What in hell would we do here?" someone asked. "Collect Gila monsters for their good looks?"

"Don't get gay," said Walleye. "What's the matter with going into business? Here's a heap of people going

through, and more coming every day. This ferry business could be made to pay big. Them Injins charges two

bits a head. That's a crime for the only way across. And how much do you suppose whisky'd be worth to

drink after that desert? And a man's so sick of himself by the time he gets this far that he'd play

That kind of talk hit them where they lived, and Yuma was founded right then and there. They hadn't any

whisky yet, but cards were plenty, and the ferry monopoly was too easy. Walleye served notice on the Injins

that a dollar a head went; and we all set to building a tule raft like the others. Then the wild bunch got uneasy,

so they walked upstream one morning and stole the Injins' boats. The Injins came after them innocent as

babies, thinking the raft had gone adrift. When they got into camp our men opened up and killed four of them

as a kind of hint. After that the ferry company didn't have any trouble. The Yumas moved up river a ways,

where they've lived ever since. They got the corpses and buried them. That is, they dug a trench for each one

and laid poles across it, with a funeral pyre on the poles. Then they put the body on top, and the women of the

family cut their hair off and threw it on. After that they set fire to the outfit, and, when the poles bad burned

through, the whole business fell into the trench of its own accord. It was the neatest, automatic, selfcocking,

doubleaction sort of a funeral I ever saw. There wasn't any ceremonyonly crying.

The ferry business flourished at prices which were sometimes hard to collect. But it was a case of pay or go

back, and it was a tur'ble long ways back. We got us timbers and made a scow; built a baile and saloon and

houses out of adobe; and called her Yuma, after the Injins that had really started her. We got our supplies

through the Gulf of California, where sailing boats worked up the river. People began to come in for one

reason or another, and first thing we knew we had a store and all sorts of trimmings. In fact we was a real live

At this moment the heavy beat of the storm on the roof ceased with miraculous suddenness, leaving the

outside world empty of sound save for the DRIP, DRIP, DRIP of eaves. Nobody ventured to fill in the pause

that followed the stranger's last words, so in a moment he continued his narrative.

We had every sort of people with us off and on, and, as I was lookout at a popular game, I saw them all. One

evening I was on my way home about two o'clock of a moonlit night, when on the edge of the shadow I

stumbled over a body lying part across the footway. At the same instant I heard the rip of steel through cloth

and felt a sharp stab in my left leg. For a minute I thought some drunk had used his knife on me, and I mighty

near derringered him as he lay. But somehow I didn't, and looking closer, I saw the man was unconscious.

Then I scouted to see what had cut me, and found that the fellow had lost a hand. In place of it he wore a

I dragged him out into the light. He was a slimbuilt young fellow, with straight black hair, long and lank and

oily, a lean face, and big hooked nose. He had on only a thin shirt, a pair of rough wool pants, and the

rawhide homemade zapatos the Mexicans wore then instead of boots. Across his forehead ran a long gash,

There was no doubt of his being alive, for he was breathing hard, like a man does when he gets hit over the

Well, it was really none of my business, as you might say. Men got batted over the head often enough in

those days. But for some reason I picked him up and carried him to my 'dobe shack, and laid him out, and

washed his cut with sour wine. That brought him to. Sour wine is fine to put a wound in shape to heal, but it's

no soothing syrup. He sat up as though he'd been touched with a hot poker, stared around wildeyed, and cut

loose with that song you were singing. Only it wasn't that verse. It was another one further along, that went

It fair made my hair rise to hear him, with the big, still, solemn desert outside, and the quiet moonlight, and

the shadows, and him sitting up straight and gaunt, his eyes blazing each side his big eagle nose, and his

snaky hair hanging over the raw cut across his head. However, I made out to get him bandaged up and in

Well, he was clean out of his head for nigh two weeks. Most of the time he lay flat on his back staring at the

pole roof, his eyes burning and looking like they saw each one something a different distance off, the way

crazy eyes do. That was when he was best. Then again he'd sing that Barbaree song until I'd go out and look

at the old Colorado flowing by just to be sure I hadn't died and gone below. Or else he'd just talk. That was

the worst performance of all. It was like listening to one end of a telephone, though we didn't know what

telephones were in those days. He began when be was a kid, and he gave his side of conversations, pausing

for replies. I could mighty near furnish the replies sometimes. It was queer lingoabout ships and ships'

officers and gales and calms and fights and pearls and whales and islands and birds and skies. But it was all

little stuff. I used to listen by the hour, but I never made out anything really important as to who the man was,

At the end of the second week I came in at noon as per usual to fix him up with grub. I didn't pay any

attention to him, for he was quiet. As I was bending over the fire he spoke. Usually I didn't bother with his

talk, for it didn't mean anything, but something in his voice made me turn. He was lying on his side, those

I hadn't any more than got the words out of my mouth before he was atop me. His method was a winner. He

had me by the throat with his hand, and I felt the point of the hook pricking the back of my neck. One little

But he'd been too sick and too long abed. He turned dizzy and keeled over, and I dumped him back on the

"Now you're a nice, sweet proposition," said I, as soon as I was sure he could understand me. "Here I pick

you up on the street and save your worthless carcass, and the first chance you get you try to crawl my hump.

"For heaven's sake," I yelled at him, "what's the matter with you and your old clothes? There ain't enough of

them to dust a fiddle with anyway. What do you think I'd want with them? They're safe enough."'

"Well," said I, "what did you expect would happen to you lying around Yuma after midnight with a hole in

He looked at me mighty suspicious, but didn't say anything more he wouldn't even answer when I spoke to

him. After he'd eaten a fair meal he fell asleep. When I came back that evening the bunk was empty and he

I didn't see him again for two days. Then I caught sight of him quite a ways off. He nodded at me very sour,

"Guess he suspicions I stole that old coat of his," thinks I; and afterwards I found that my surmise had been

However, he didn't stay long in that frame of mind. It was along towards evening, and I was walking on the

banks looking down over the muddy old Colorado, as I always liked to do. The sun had just set, and the

mountains had turned hard and stiff, as they do after the glow, and the sky above them was a thousand

million miles deep of pale greengold light. A pair of Greasers were ahead of me, but I could see only their

outlines, and they didn't seem to interfere any with the scenery. Suddenly a black figure seemed to rise up out

of the ground; the Mexican man went down as though he'd been jerked with a string, and the woman

I ran up, pulling my gun. The Mex was flat on his face, his arms stretched out. On the middle of his back

knelt my onearmed friend. And that sharp hook was caught neatly under the point of the Mexican's jaw.

I really think I was just in time to save the man's life. According to my belief another minute would have

buried the hook in the Mexican's neck. Anyway, I thrust the muzzle of my Colt's into the sailor's face.

The sailor looked up at me without changing his position. He was not the least bit afraid.

He still held the hook under the man's jaw, but with the other hand he ran rapidly under and over the

Mexican's left shoulder. In the half light I could see his face change. The gleam died from his eye; the snarl

The Mexican was only too glad to get off so easy. I don't know whether he'd really won the coat at monte or

The man with the hook felt the left shoulder of the coat again, looked up, met my eye, muttered something

During the next two months he was a good deal about town, mostly doing odd jobs. I saw him off and on. He

always spoke to me as pleasantly as he knew how, and once made some sort of a bluff about paying me back

for my trouble in bringing him around. However, I didn't pay much attention to that, being at the time

The last day of February I was sitting in my shack smoking a pipe after supper, when my onearmed friend

opened the door a foot, slipped in, and shut it immediately. By the time he looked towards me I knew where

"I want to make up to you for your trouble," said he. "I've got a good thing, and I want to let you in on it."

"Sit down," said I"over there; the other side the table." He did so. "Now, fire away," said I.

He told me his name was Solomon Anderson, but that he was generally known as Handy Solomon, on

account of his hook; that he had always followed the sea; that lately he had coasted the west shores of

Mexico; that at Guaymas he had fallen in with Spanish friends, in company with whom he had visited the

mines in the Sierra Madre; that on this expedition the party had been attacked by Yaquis and wiped out, he

alone surviving; that his blanketmate before expiring had told him of gold buried in a cove of Lower

California by the man's grandfather; that the man had given him a chart showing the location of the treasure;

that he had sewn this chart in the shoulder of his coat, whence his suspicion of me and his being so loco about

"And it's a big thing," said Handy Solomon to me, "for they's not only gold, but altar jewels and diamonds. It

"That may all be true," said I, "but why do you tell me? Why don't you get your treasure without the need of

"Why, mate," he answered, "it's just plain gratitude. Didn't you save my life, and nuss me, and take care of

"Look here, Anderson, or Handy Solomon, or whatever you please to call yourself," I rejoined to this, "if

you're going to do business with meand I do not understand yet just what it is you want of meyou'll

have to talk straight. It's all very well to say gratitude, but that don't go with me. You've been around here

three months, and barring a halfdozen civil words and twice as many of the other kind, I've failed to see any

indications of your gratitude before. It's a quality with a hell of a hangfire to it."

He looked at me sideways, spat, and looked at me sideways again. Then he burst into a laugh.

"The devil's a preacher, if you ain't lost your pinfeathers,"' said he. "Well, it's this then: I got to have a boat to

get there; and she must be stocked. And I got to have help with the treasure, if it's like this fellow said it was.

And the Yaquis and cannibals from Tiburon is through the country. It's money I got to have, and it's money I

We talked the matter over at length. I had to force him to each point, for suspicion was strong in him. I stood

out for a larger party. He strongly opposed this as depreciating the shares, but I had no intention of going

alone into what was then considered a wild and dangerous country. Finally we compromised. A third of the

treasure was to go to him, a third to me, and the rest was to be divided among the men whom I should select.

"How do I know you plays fair?" he complained. "They'll be four of you to one of me; and I don't like it, and

you can kiss the Book on that." "If you don't like it, leave it," said I, "and get out, and be damned to you."

Finally he agreed; but he refused me a look at the chart, saying that he had left it in a safe place. I believe in

"Say, you fellows," he complained, "I got to be up at three o'clock. Ain't you never going to turn in?"

"Shut up, Doctor!" "Somebody kill him!" "Here, sit down and listen to this yarn!" yelled a savage chorus.

There ensued a slight scuffle, a few objections. Then silence, and the stranger took up his story.

I had a chum named Billy Simpson, and I rung him in for friendship. Then there was a solemn, tall Texas

young fellow, strong as a bull, straight and tough, brought up fighting Injins. He never said much, but I knew

he'd be right there when the gong struck. For fourth man I picked out a German named Schwartz. He and

Simpson had just come back from the mines together. I took him because he was a friend of Billy's, and

besides was young and strong, and was the only man in town excepting the sailor, Anderson, who knew

anything about running a boat. I forgot to say that the Texas fellow was named Denton.

Handy Solomon had his boat all picked out. It belonged to some Basques who had sailed her around from

California. I must say when I saw her I felt inclined to renig, for she wasn't more'n about twentyfive feet

long, was open except for a little sort of cubbyhole up in the front of her, had one mast, and was pointed at

both ends. However, Schwartz said she was all right. He claimed he knew the kind; that she was the sort used

We worked her up to Yuma, partly with oars and partly by sails. Then we loaded her with grub for a month.

Each of us had his own weapons, of course. In addition we put in picks and shovels, and a small cask of

water. Handy Solomon said that would be enough, as there was water marked down on his chart. We told the

At the end of the week we started, and were out four days. There wasn't much room, what with the supplies

and the baggage, for the five of us. We had to curl up 'most anywheres to sleep. And it certainly seemed to

me that we were in lots of danger. The waves were much bigger than she was, and splashed on us

considerable, but Schwartz and Anderson didn't seem to mind. They laughed at us. Anderson sang that song

of his, and Schwartz told us of the placers he had worked. He and Simpson had made a pretty good cleanup,

just enough to make them want to get rich. The first day out Simpson showed us a belt with about an hundred

ounces of dust. This he got tired of wearing, so he kept it in a compassbox, which was empty.

At the end of the four days we turned in at a deep bay and came to anchor. The country was the usual

propositionvery lightbrown, brittlelooking mountains, about two thousand feet high; lots of sage and

But Denton and I were mighty glad to see any sort of land. Besides, our keg of water was pretty low, and it

was getting about time to discover the spring the chart spoke of. So we piled our camp stuff in the small boat

Anderson led the way confidently enough up a dry arroyo, whose sides were clay and conglomerate. But,

though we followed it to the end, we could find no indications that it was anything more than a wash for rain

There he spread out the chartthe first look at it we'd hadand set to studying it.

It was a careful piece of work done in India ink, pretty old, to judge by the look of it, and with all sorts of

pictures of mountains and dolphins and ships and anchors around the edge. There was our bay, all right. Two

"Now there's the high cliff," says Anderson, following it out, "and there's the round hill with the

boulderand if them bearings don't point due for that ravine, the devil's a preacher."

We tried it again, with the same result. A second inspection of the map brought us no light on the question.

We talked it over, and looked at it from all points, but we couldn't dodge the truth: the chart was wrong.

Then we explored several of the nearest gullies, but without finding anything but loose stones baked hot in

By now it was getting towards sundown, so we built us a fire of mesquite on the beach, made us supper, and

"That's what we've got to find first," said Simpson, "no question of it. It's God knows how far to the next

water, and we don't know how long it will take us to get there in that little boat. If we run our water entirely

out before we start, we're going to be in trouble. We'll have a good look tomorrow, and if we don't find her,

"I thought of that," said Handy Solomon, "but then, thinks I to myself, this old rip probably don't make no

long stay herejust dodges in and out like, between tides, to bury his loot. He would need no water at the

time; but he might when he came back, so he marked the water on his map. But he wasn't noways particular

AND exact, being in a hurry. But you can kiss the Book to it that he didn't make no such mistakes about the

When we came to turn in, Anderson suggested that he should sleep aboard the boat. But Billy Simpson, in

mind perhaps of the hundred ounces in the compassbox, insisted that he'd just as soon as not. After a little

objection Handy Solomon gave in, but I thought he seemed sour about it. We built a good fire, and in about

Now, usually I sleep like a log, and did this time until about midnight. Then all at once I came broad awake

and sitting up in my blankets. Nothing had happenedI wasn't even dreamingbut there I was as alert and

By the light of the fire I saw Handy Solomon sitting, and at his side our five rifles gathered.

I must have made some noise, for he turned quietly toward me, saw I was awake, and nodded. The moonlight

was sparkling on the hard stony landscape, and a thin dampness came out from the sea.

He showed me how he was inserting a little patch of felt between the hammer and the nipple, a scheme of his

own for keeping damp from the powder. Then he rolled up in his blanket. At the time it all seemed quite

naturalI suppose my mind wasn't fully awake, for all my head felt so clear. Afterwards I realised what a

ridiculous bluff he was making: for of course the cap already on the nipple was plenty to keep out the damp. I

fully believe he intended to kill us as we lay. Only my sudden awakening spoiled his plan.

I had absolutely no idea of this at the time, however. Not the slightest suspicion entered my head. In view of

that fact, I have since believed in guardian angels. For my next move, which at the time seemed to me

absolutely aimless, was to change my blankets from one side of the fire to the other. And that brought me

Owing to this fact, I am now convinced, we awoke safe at daylight, cooked breakfast, and laid the plan for

the day. Anderson directed us. I was to climb over the ridge before us and search in the ravine on the other

side. Schwartz was to explore up the beach to the left, and Denton to the right. Anderson said he would wait

for Billy Simpson, who had overslept in the darkness of the cubbyhole, and who was now paddling ashore.

The two of them would push inland to the west until a high hill would give them a chance to look around for

We started at once, before the sun would be hot. The hill I had to climb was steep and covered with chollas,

so I didn't get along very fast. When I was about half way to the top I heard a shot from the beach. I looked

back. Anderson was in the small boat, rowing rapidly out to the vessel. Denton was running up the beach

from one direction and Schwartz from the other. I slid and slipped down the bluff, getting pretty well stuck up

At the beach we found Billy Simpson lying on his ace, shot through the back. We turned him over, but he

was apparently dead. Anderson had hoisted the sail, had cut loose from the anchor, and was sailing away.

Denton stood up straight and tall, looking. Then he pulled his belt in a hole, grabbed my arm, and started to

run up the long curve of the beach. Behind us came Schwartz. We ran near a mile, and then fell among some

"Our only chanceto get him said Denton. "He's got to go around this pointbig windperhaps his

So there we two fools lay, like panthers in the tules, taking our only oneinamillion chance to lay hands on

Anderson. Any sailor could have told us that the mast wouldn't break, but we had winded Schwartz a quarter

of a mile back. And so we waited, our eyes fixed on the boat's sail, grudging her every inch, just burning to

fix things to suit us a little better. And naturally she made the point in what I now know was only a fresh

We walked back slowly to our camp, swallowing the copper taste of too hard a run. Schwartz we picked up

from a boulder, just recovering. We were all of us crazy mad. Schwartz half wept, and blamed and cussed.

Denton glowered away in silence. I ground my feet into the sand in a help less sort of anger, not only at the

man himself, but also at the whole way things had turned out. I don't believe the least notion of our

predicament had come to any of us. All we knew yet was that we had been done up, and we were hostile

But at camp we found something to occupy us for the moment. Poor Billy was not dead, as we had supposed,

but very weak and sick, and a hole square through him. When we returned he was conscious, but that was

about all. His eyes were shut, and he was moaning. I tore open his shirt to stanch the blood. He felt my hand

At that we others saw all at once where we stood. I remember I rose to my feet and found myself staring

straight into Tom Denton's eyes. We looked at each other that way for I guess it was a full minute. Then Tom

The Old Timer's voice broke a little. We had leisure to notice that even the drip from the eaves had ceased. A

faint, diffused light vouchsafed us dim outlines of sprawling figures and tumbled bedding. Far in the distance

We could do nothing for him except shelter him from the sun, and wet his forehead with seawater; nor could

we think clearly for ourselves as long as the spark of life lingered in him. His chest rose and fell regularly, but

with long pauses between. When the sun was overhead he suddenly opened his eyes.

"Fellows," said he, "it's beautiful over there; the grass is so green, and the water so cool; I am tired of

Then he died. We scooped out a shallow hole above tidemark, and laid him in it, and piled over him stones

"Now, boys," said I, "there seems to me just one thing to do, and that is to pike out for water as fast as we

"Well," I argued, "I don't believe there's any water about this bay. Maybe there was when that chart was

made. It was a long time ago. And any way, the old pirate was a sailor, and no plainsman, and maybe he

mistook rainwater for a spring. We've looked around this end of the bay. The chances are we'd use up two or

three days exploring around the other, and then wouldn't be as well off as we are right now."

"Well," said I, "there's one thing I've always noticed in case of folks held up by the desert: they generally go

wandering about here and there looking for water until they die not far from where they got lost. And usually

"Now, I've always figured that it would be a good deal better to start right out for some particular place, even

if it's ten thousand miles away. A man is just as likely to strike water going in a straight line as he is going in

"So," I finished, "I reckon we'd better follow the coast south and try to get to Mollyhay."

"I don't rightly know. But somewheres between three and five hundred miles, at a guess."

At that he fell to glowering and grooming with himself, brooding over what a hard time it was going to be.

That is the way with a German. First off he's plumb scared at the prospect of suffering anything, and would

rather die right off than take long chances. After he gets into the swing of it, he behaves as well as any man.

"We took stock of what we had to depend on. The total assets proved to be just three pairs of legs. A pot of

coffee had been on the fire, but that villain had kicked it over when he left. The kettle of beans was there, but

somehow we got the notion they might have been poisoned, so we left them. I don't know now why we were

so foolishif poison was his game, he'd have tried it beforebut at that time it seemed reasonable enough.

Perhaps the horror of the morning's work, and the sight of the brittlebrown mountains, and the ghastly

yellow glare of the sun, and the blue waves racing by outside, and the big strong wind that blew through us so

hard that it seemed to blow empty our souls, had turned our judgment. Anyway, we left a full meal there in

So without any further delay we set off up the ridge I had started to cross that morning. Schwartz lagged,

sulky as a muley cow, but we managed to keep him with us. At the top of the ridge we took our bearings for

the next deep bay. Already we had made up our minds to stick to the seacoast, both on account of the lower

country over which to travel and the off chance of falling in with a fishing vessel. Schwartz muttered

something about its being too far even to the next bay, and wanted to sit down on a rock. Denton didn't say

anything, but he jerked Schwartz up by the collar so fiercely that the German gave it over and came along.

We dropped down into the gully, stumbled over the boulder wash, and began to toil in the ankledeep sand of

a little sagebrush flat this side of the next ascent. Schwartz followed steadily enough now, but had fallen

forty or fifty feet behind. This was a nuisance, as we bad to keep turning to see if he still kept up.

Denton and I hurried back to find him on his hands and knees behind a sagebrush, clawing away at the sand

For answer he moved a little to one side, showing beneath his knee one corner of a wooden box sticking

At this we dropped beside him, and in five minutes had uncovered the whole of the chest. It was not very

large, and was locked. A rock from the wash fixed that, however. We threw back the lid.

It was full to the brim of gold coins, thrown in loose, nigh two bushels of them.

There it was, sure enough, or some of it. We looked the rest through, but found nothing but the gold coins.

Denton backed me up. We were both old hands at the business, had each in our time suffered the

But Schwartz was moneymad. Left to himself he would have staid on that sand flat to perish, as certainly as

had poor Billy. We had fairly to force him away, and then succeeded only because we let him fill all his

pockets to bulging with the coins. As we moved up the next rise, he kept looking back and uttering little

Luckily for us it was winter. We shouldn't have lasted six hours at this time of year. As it was, the sun was

hot against the shale and the little stones of those cussed hills. We plodded along until late afternoon, toiling

up one hill and down another, only to repeat immediately. Towards sundown we made the second bay, where

we plunged into the sea, clothes and all, and were greatly refreshed. I suppose a man absorbs a good deal that

We were now pretty hungry, and, as we walked along the shore, we began to look for turtles or shellfish, or

anything else that might come handy. There was nothing. Schwartz wanted to stop for a night's rest, but

"Look here, Schwartz," said Denton, "you don't realise you're entered against time in this raceand that

It was weird enough, I can tell you. The moon shone cold and white over that dead, dry country. Hot whiffs

rose from the baked stones and hillsides. Shadows lay under the stones like animals crouching. When we

came to the edge of a silvery hill we dropped off into pitchy blackness. There we stumbled over boulders for

a minute or so, and began to climb the steep shale on the other side. This was fearful work. The top seemed

always miles away. By morning we didn't seem to have made much of anywhere. The same old

hollowlooking mountains with the sharp edges stuck up in about the same old places.

We had got over being very hungry, and, though we were pretty dry, we didn't really suffer yet from thirst.

About this time Denton ran across some fishhook cactus, which we cut up and chewed. They have a sticky

wet sort of inside, which doesn't quench your thirst any, but helps to keep you from drying up and blowing

All that day we plugged along as per usual. It was main hard work, and we got to that state where things are

disagreeable, but mechanical. Strange to say, Schwartz kept in the lead. It seemed to me at the time that he

was using more energy than the occasion called forjust as man runs faster before he comes to the

givingout point. However, the hours went by, and he didn't seem to get any more tired than the rest of us.

We kept a sharp lookout for anything to eat, but there was nothing but lizards and horned toads. Later we'd

have been glad of them, but by that time we'd got out of their district. Night came. Just at sundown we took

another wallow in the surf, and chewed some more fishhook cactus. When the moon came up we went on.

I'm not going to tell you how dead beat we got. We were pretty tough and strong, for all of us had been used

to hard living, but after the third day without anything to eat and no water to drink, it came to be pretty hard

going. It got to the point where we had to have some REASON for getting out besides just keeping alive. A

man would sometimes rather die than keep alive, anyway, if it came only to that. But I know I made up my

mind I was going to get out so I could smash up that Anderson, and I reckon Denton had the same idea.

Schwartz didn't say anything, but he pumped on ahead of us, his back bent over, and his clothes sagging and

We used to travel all night, because it was cool, and rest an hour or two at noon. That is all the rest we did

get. I don't know how fast we went; I'd got beyond that. We must have crawled along mighty slow, though,

after our first strength gave out. The way I used to do was to collect myself with an effort, look around for my

bearings, pick out a landmark a little distance off, and forget everything but it. Then I'd plod along, knowing

nothing but the sand and shale and slope under my feet, until I'd reached that landmark. Then I'd clear my

But I couldn't shut out the figure of Schwartz that way. He used to walk along just ahead of my shoulder. His

face was all twisted up, but I remember thinking at the time it looked more as if he was worried in his mind

than like bodily suffering. The weight of the gold in his clothes bent his shoulders over.

As we went on the country gradually got to be more mountainous, and, as we were steadily growing weaker,

it did seem things were piling up on us. The eighth day we ran out of the fishhook cactus, and, being on a

high promontory, were out of touch with the sea. For the first time my tongue began to swell a little. The

cactus had kept me from that before. Denton must have been in the same fix, for he looked at me and raised

Schwartz was having a good deal of difficulty to navigate. I will say for him that he had done well, but now I

could see that his strength was going on him in spite of himself. He knew it, all right, for when we rested that

day he took all the gold coins and spread them in a row, and counted them, and put them back in his pocket,

and then all of a sudden snatched out two handfuls and threw them as far as he could.

"Too heavy," he muttered, but that was all he could bring himself to throw away.

All that night we wandered high in the air. I guess we tried to keep a general direction, but I don't know.

Anyway, along late, but before moonriseshe was now on the waneI came to, and found myself looking

over the edge of a twentyfoot drop. Right below me I made out a faint glimmer of white earth in the

starlight. Somehow it reminded me of a little trail I used to know under a big rock back in Texas.

At least that's what half of me thought. The other half was sensible, and knew better, but it seemed to be kind

of standing to one side, a little scornful, watching the performance. So I slid and slipped down to the strip of

white earth, and, sure enough, it was a trail. At that the loco half of me gave the sensible part the laugh. I

followed the path twenty feet and came to a dark hollow under the rock, and in it a round pool of water about

a foot across. They say a man kills himself drinking too much, after starving for water. That may be, but it

didn't kill me, and I sucked up all I could hold. Perhaps the fishhook cactus had helped. Well, sir, it was

surprising how that drink brought me around. A minute before I'd been on the edge of going plumb loco, and

I hunted up Denton and Schwartz. They drank, themselves full, too. Then we rested. It was mighty hard to

Oh, we had to do it. We'd have starved sure, there. The trail was a game trail, but that did us no good, for we

How we did wish for the coffeepot, so we could take some away. We filled our hats, and carried them about

three hours, before the water began to soak through. Then we had to drink it in order to save it.

The country fairly stood up on end. We had to climb separate little hills so as to avoid rolling rocks down on

each other. It took it out of us. About this time we began to see mountain sheep. They would come right up to

the edges of the small cliffs to look at us. We threw stones at them, hoping to hit one in the forehead, but of

The good effects of the water lasted us about a day. Then we began to see things again. Off and on I could see

water plain as could be in every hollow, and game of all kinds standing around and looking at me. I knew

these were all fakes. By making an effort I could swing things around to where they belonged. I used to do

that every once in a while, just to be sure we weren't doubling back, and to look out for real water. But most

of the time it didn't seem to be worth while. I just let all these visions riot around and have a good time inside

me or outside me, whichever it was. I knew I could get rid of them any minute. Most of the time, if I was in

any doubt, it was easier to throw a stone to see if the animals were real or not. The real ones ran away.

We began to see bands of wild horses in the uplands. One day both Denton and I plainly saw one with saddle

marks on him. If only one of us had seen him, it wouldn't have counted much, but we both made him out.

This encouraged us wonderfully, though I don't see why it should have. We had topped the high country, too,

and had started down the other side of the mountains that ran out on the promontory. Denton and I were still

navigating without any thought of giving up, but Schwartz was getting in bad shape. I'd hate to pack twenty

pounds over that country even with rest, food, and water. He was toting it on nothing. We told him so, and he

came to see it, but he never could persuade himself to get rid of the gold all at once. Instead he threw away

the pieces one by one. Each sacrifice seemed to nerve him up for another heat. I can shut my eyes and see it

nowthe wide, glaring, yellow country, the pasteboard mountains, we three dragging along, and the fierce

sunshine flashing from the doubloons as one by one they went spinning through the air.

"I'd like to have trailed you fellows," sighed a voice from the corner. "Would you!" said Colorado Rogers

It was five days to the next water. But they were worse than the eight days before. We were lucky, however,

for at the spring we discovered in a deep wash near the coast, was the driedup skull of a horse. It had been

there a long time, but a few shreds of dried flesh still clung to it. It was the only thing that could be described

as food that had passed our lips since breakfast thirteen days before. In that time we had crossed the mountain

chain, and had come again to the sea. The Lord was good to us. He sent us the water, and the horse's skull,

and the smooth hard beach, without breaks or the necessity of climbing hills. And we needed it, oh, I promise

I doubt if any of us could have kept the direction except by such an obvious and continuous landmark as the

sea to our left. It hardly seemed worth while to focus my mind, but I did it occasionally just by way of testing

myself. Schwartz still threw away his gold coins, and once, in one of my rare intervals of looking about me, I

saw Denton picking them up. This surprised me mildly, but I was too tired to be very curious. Only now,

when I saw Schwartz's arm sweep out in what had become a mechanical movement, I always took pains to

look, and always I saw Denton search for the coin. Sometimes he found it, and sometimes he did not.

The figures of my companions and the yellowbrown tide sand under my feet, and a consciousness of the

blue and white sea to my left, are all I remember, except when we had to pull ourselves together for the

purpose of cutting fishhook cactus. I kept going, and I knew I had a good reason for doing so, but it seemed

Schwartz threw away a gold piece as another man would take a stimulant. Gradually, without really thinking

about it, I came to see this, and then went on to sabe why Denton picked up the coins; and a great admiration

for Denton's cleverness seeped through me like water through the sand. He was saving the coins to keep

Schwartz going. When the last coin went, Schwartz would give out. It all sounds queer now, but it seemed all

So we walked on the beach, losing entire track of time. And after a long interval I came to myself to see

Schwartz lying on the sand, and Denton standing over him. Of course we'd all been falling down a lot, but

His voice sounded as if it was miles away, which surprised me, but, when I answered, mine sounded miles

I nodded. It seemed all right, this new, strange purchasing power of goldit WAS all right, by God, and as

This far I reckon we'd hung onto ourselves because it was serious. Now I began to laugh. So did Denton. We

said I. Then we laughed some more, until the tears ran down our cheeks, and we had to hold our poor weak

whispered Denton, and then off we went into more shrieks. And when we would sober down a little, one or

At last I realised that we ought to pull ourselves together, so I snubbed up short, and Denton did the same,

and we set to laying plans. But every minute or so one of us would catch on some word, and then we'd trail

sings I, and there we were both off again until one or the other managed to grope his way back to common

sense again. And sometimes we crowhopped solemnly around and around the prostrate Schwartz like a pair

But somehow we got our plan laid at last, slipped the coins into Schwartz's pocket, and said goodbye.

yelled Denton, and laughing fit to kill, danced off up the beach, and out into a sort of grey mist that shut off

So I kicked Schwartz, he felt in his pocket, threw a gold piece away, and "bought a little more walk."

My entire vision was fifty feet or so across. Beyond that was grey mist. Inside my circle I could see the sand

quite plainly and Denton's footprints. If I moved a little to the left, the wash of the waters would lap under the

If I moved to the right, I came to cliffs. The nearer I drew to them, the farther up I could see, but I could

never see to the top. It used to amuse me to move this area of consciousness about to see what I could find.

Actual physical suffering was beginning to dull, and my head seemed to be getting clearer.

One day, without any apparent reason, I moved at right angles across the beach. Directly before me lay a

Do you know what that meant? Animals don't cut sugar cane and bring it to the beach and chew one end. A

new strength ran through me, and actually the grey mist thinned and lifted for a moment, until I could make

I was not a bit hungry, but I chewed on the sugar cane, and made Schwartz do the same. When we went on I

I remember after that its getting dark and then light again, so the night must have passed, but whether we

rested or walked I do not know. Probably we did not get very far, though certainly we staggered ahead after

About midday, I suppose, I made out a dim trail leading up a break in the cliffs. Plenty of such trails we had

seen before. They were generally made by peccaries in search of castup fish I hope they had better luck

But in the middle of this, as though for a sign, lay another piece of chewed sugar cane.

I had agreed with Denton to stick to the beach, but Schwartz could not last much longer, and I had not the

slightest idea how far it might prove to be to Mollyhay. So I turned up the trail.

We climbed a mountain ten thousand feet high. I mean that; and I know, for I've climbed them that high, and

I know just how it feels, and how many times you have to rest, and how long it takes, and how much it

knocks out of you. Those are the things that count in measuring height, and so I tell you we climbed that far.

Actually I suppose the hill was a couple of hundred feet, if not less. But on account of the grey mist I

We reached the summit late in the afternoon, for the sun was square in our eyes. But instead of blinding me,

it seemed to clear my sight, so that I saw below me a little mud hut with smoke rising behind it, and a small

Well, we stumbled down the trail and into the hut. At first I thought it was empty, but after a minute I saw a

very old man crouched in a corner. As I looked at him he raised his bleared eyes to me, his head swinging

slowly from side to side as though with a kind of palsy. He could not see me, that was evident, nor hear me,

but some instinct not yet decayed turned him toward a new presence in the room. In my wild desire for water

A vessel of water was in the corner. I drank it. It was more than I could hold, but I drank even after I was

filled, and the waste ran from the corners of my mouth. I had forgotten Schwartz. The excess made me a little

sick, but I held down what I had swallowed, and I really believe it soaked into my system as it does into the

In a moment or so I took the vessel and filled it and gave it to Schwartz. Then it seemed to me that my

responsibility had ended. A sudden great dreamy lassitude came over me. I knew I needed food, but I had no

wish for it, and no ambition to search it out. The man in the corner mumbled at me with his toothless gums. I

remember wondering if we were all to starve there peacefully togetherSchwartz and his remaining gold

After a while the light was blotted out. There followed a slight pause. Then I knew that someone had flown to

my side, and was kneeling beside me and saying liquid, pitying things in Mexican. I swallowed something

hot and strong. In a moment I came back from wherever I was drifting, to look up at a Mexican girl about

She was no great matter in looks, but she seemed like an angel to me then. And she had sense. No questions,

no nothing. Just business. The only thing she asked of me was if I understood Spanish.

Then she told me that her brother would be back soon, that they were very poor, that she was sorry she had

no meat to offer me, that they were VERY poor, that all they had was calabasha sort of squash. All this

time she was bustling things together. Next thing I know I had a big bowl of calabash stew between my

Now, strangely enough, I had no great interest in that calabash stew. I tasted it, sat and thought a while, and

tasted it again. By and by I had emptied the bowl. It was getting dark. I was very sleepy. A man came in, but I

was too drowsy to pay any attention to him. I heard the sound of voices. Then I was picked up bodily and

carried to an outbuilding and laid on a pile of skins. I felt the weight of a blanket thrown over me

I awoke in the night. Mind you, I had practically had no rest at all for a matter of more than two weeks, yet I

woke in a few hours. And, remember, even in eating the calabash stew I had felt no hunger in spite of my

long fast. But now I found myself ravenous. You boys do not know what hunger is. It HURTS. And all the

rest of that night I lay awake chewing on the rawhide of a packsaddle that hung near me.

Next morning the young Mexican and his sister came to us early, bringing more calabash stew. I fell on it like

a wild animal, and just wallowed in it, so eager was I to eat. They stood and watched meand I suppose

Schwartz, too, though I had now lost interest in anyone but myselfglancing at each other in pity from time

When I had finished the man told me that they had decided to kill a beef so we could have meat. They were

I appreciated this afterward. At the time I merely caught at the word "meat." It seemed to me I could have

eaten the animal entire, hide, hoofs, and tallow. As a matter of fact, it was mighty lucky they didn't have any

meat. If they had, we'd probably have killed ourselves with it. I suppose the calabash was about the best thing

So we bad been near our journey's end after all, and Denton was probably all right.

About one o'clock a group of horsemen rode over the hill. When they came near enough I recognised Denton

They had followed back along the beach, caught our trail where we had turned off, and so discovered us.

We said goodbye to the Mexican girl. I made Schwartz give her one of his gold pieces.

But Denton could not wait for us to say "hullo" even, he was so anxious to get back to town, so we mounted

We lived three weeks in Mollyhay. It took us that long to get fed up. The lady I stayed with made a dish of

Why, an hour after filling myself up to the muzzle I'd be hungry again, and scouting round to houses looking

We talked things over a good deal, after we had gained a little strength. I wanted to take a little flyer at

Guaymas to see if I could run across this Handy Solomon person, but Denton pointed out that Anderson

would be expecting just that, and would take mighty good care to be scarce. His idea was that we'd do better

to get hold of a boat and some water casks, and lug off the treasure we had stumbled over. Denton told us that

the idea of going back and scooping all that dinero up with a shovel had kept him going, just as the idea of

getting even with Anderson had kept me going. Schwartz said that after he'd carried that heavy gold over the

first day, he made up his mind he'd get the spending of it or bust. That's why he hated so to throw it away.

There were lots of fishing boats in the harbour, and we hired one, and a man to run it for next to nothing a

I tell you it looked queer. There were the charred sticks of the fire, and the coffeepot lying on its side. We

took off our hats at poor Billy's grave a minute, and then climbed over the chollacovered hill carrying our

There was no trouble in reaching the sandy flat. But when we got there we found it torn up from one end to

the other. A few scattered timbers and three empty chests with the covers pried off alone remained. Handy

We went back to our boat sick at heart. Nobody said a word. We went aboard and made our Greaser boatman

head for Yuma. It took us a week to get there. We were all of us glum, but Denton was the worst of the lot.

Even after we'd got back to town and fallen into our old ways of life, he couldn't seem to get over it. He

seemed plumb possessed of gloom, and moped around like a chicken with the pip. This surprised me, for I

didn't think the loss of money would hit him so hard. It didn't hit any of us very hard in those days.

"Oh, HELL, Rogers," he burst out, "I don't care about the loot. But, suffering cats, think how that fellow sized

us up for a lot of patternmade fools; and how right he was about, it. Why all he did was to sail out of sight

around the next corner. He knew we'd start across country; and we did. All we had to do was to lay low, and

save our legs. He was BOUND to come back. And we might have nailed him when he landed."

"That's about all there was to it," concluded Colorado Rogers, after a pause, "except that I've been looking

for him ever since, and when I heard you singing that song I naturally thought I'd landed." "And you never

saw him again?" asked Windy Bill. "Well," chuckled Rogers, "I did about ten year later. It was in Tucson. I

was in the back of a store, when the door in front opened and this man came in. He stopped at the little

cigarcase by the door. In about one jump I was on his neck. I jerked him over backwards before he knew

what had struck him, threw him on his face, got my hands in his backhair, and began to jump his features

against the floor. Then all at once I noted that this man had two arms; so of course he was the wrong fellow.

It was Sunday at the ranch. For a wonder the weather bad been favourable; the windmills were all working,

the bogs had dried up, the beef had lasted over, the remuda had not strayedin short, there was nothing to

do. Sang had given us a baked breadpudding with raisins in it. We filled itin a wash basin full of iton

top of a few incidental pounds of chile con, baked beans, soda biscuits, "air tights," and other delicacies. Then

we adjourned with our pipes to the shady side of the blacksmith's shop where we could watch the ravens on

top the adobe wall of the corral. Somebody told a story about ravens. This led to roadrunners. This

"Speakin' of snakes," said Windy, "I mind when they catched the greatgranddaddy of all the bullsnakes up

at Lead in the Black Hills. I was only a kid then. This wasn't no such tur'ble long a snake, but he was more'n a

foot thick. Looked just like a sahuaro stalk. Man name of Terwilliger Smith catched it. He named this yere

bullsnake Clarence, and got it so plumb gentle it followed him everywhere. One day old P. T. Barnum come

along and wanted to buy this Clarence snakeoffered Terwilliger a thousand coldbut Smith wouldn't part

with the snake nohow. So finally they fixed up a deal so Smith could go along with the show. They shoved

Clarence in a box in the baggage car, but after a while Mr. Snake gets so lonesome he gnaws out and starts to

crawl back to find his master. Just as he is halfway between the baggage car and the smoker, the couplin'

give wayright on that heavy grade between Custer and Rocky Point. Well, sir, Clarence wound his head

'round one brake wheel and his tail around the other, and held that train together to the bottom of the grade.

But it stretched him twentyeight feet and they had to advertise him as a boaconstrictor."

Windy Bill's story of the faithful bullsnake aroused to reminiscence the grizzled stranger, who thereupon held

Wall, I've see things and I've heerd things, some of them ornery, and some you'd love to believe, they was

that gorgeous and improbable. Nat'ral history was always my hobby and sportin' events my special pleasure

and this yarn of Windy's reminds me of the only chanst I ever had to ring in business and pleasure and hobby

all in one grand merrygoround of joy. It come about like this: One day, a few year back, I was sittin' on the

beach at Santa Barbara watchin' the sky stay up, and wonderin' what to do with my year's wages, when a little

"Did you ever stop to think," says he, shovin' back his hat, "that if the horsepower delivered by them waves

on this beach in one single hour could be concentrated behind washin' machines, it would be enough to wash

all the shirts for a city of four hundred and fiftyone thousand one hundred and thirtysix people?"

"Fact," says he, "and did it ever occur to you that if all the food a man eats in the course of a natural life could

be gathered together at one time, it would fill a wagontrain twelve miles long?"

"And ain't it interestin' to reflect," he goes on, "that if all the fingernail parin's of the human race for one

year was to be collected and subjected to hydraulic pressure it would equal in size the pyramid of Cheops?"

"Look yere," says I, sittin' up, "did YOU ever pause to excogitate that if all the hot air you is dispensin' was to

be collected together it would fill a balloon big enough to waft you and me over that Bullyvard of Palms to

He didn't say nothin' to thatjust yanked me to my feet, faced me towards the gin mill above mentioned, and

"You ain't so much of a dreamer, after all," thinks I. "In important matters you are plumb decisive."

We sat down at little tables, and my friend ordered a beer and a chicken sandwich.

"Chickens," says he, gazin' at the sandwich, "is a dollar apiece in this country, and plumb scarce. Did you

ever pause to ponder over the returns chickens would give on a small investment? Say you start with ten

hens. Each hatches out thirteen aigs, of which allow a loss of say six for childish accidents. At the end of the

year you has eighty chickens. At the end of two years that flock has increased to six hundred and twenty. At

He had the medicine tongue! Ten days later him and me was occupyin' of an old ranch fifty mile from

anywhere. When they run stagecoaches this joint used to be a roadhouse. The outlook was on about a

thousand little brown foothills. A road two miles four rods two foot eleven inches in sight run by in front of

us. It come over one foothill and disappeared over another. I know just how long it was, for later in the game

Out back was about a hundred little wire chicken corrals filled with chickens. We had two kinds. That was

the doin's of Tuscarora. My pardner called himself Tuscarora Maxillary. I asked him once if that was his real

"It's the realest little old name you ever heerd tell of," says he. "I know, for I made it myselfliked the sound

of her. Parents ain't got no rights to name their children. Parents don't have to be called them names."

Well, these chickens, as I said, was of two kinds. The first was these lowset, heavyweight propositions with

feathers on their laigs, and not much laigs at that, called Cochin Chinys. The other was a tall ridiculous outfit

made up entire of bulgin' breast and gangle laigs. They stood about two foot and a half tall, and when they

went to peck the ground their tail feathers stuck straight up to the sky. Tusky called 'em Japanese Games.

"Which the chief advantage of them chickens is," says he, "that in weight about ninety per cent of 'em is

breast meat. Now my idee is, that if we can cross 'em with these Cochin Chiny fowls we'll have a lowhung,

heavyweight chicken runnin' strong on breast meat. These Jap Games is too small, but if we can bring 'em up

That looked good to me, so we started in on that idee. The theery was bully, but she didn't work out. The first

broods we hatched growed up with big husky Cochin Chiny bodies and little short necks, perched up on laigs

three foot long. Them chickens couldn't reach ground nohow. We had to build a table for 'em to eat off, and

when they went out rustlin' for themselves they had to confine themselves to sidehills or flyin' insects. Their

breasts was all right, though"And think of them drumsticks for the boardinghouse trade!" says Tusky.

So far things wasn't so bad. We had a good grubstake. Tusky and me used to feed them chickens twict a day,

and then used to set around watchin' the playful critters chase grasshoppers up an' down the wire corrals,

while Tusky figgered out what'd happen if somebody was dumfool enough to gather up somethin' and fix it in

One day in the spring I hitched up, rustled a dozen of the youngsters into coops, and druv over to the railroad

to make our first sale. I couldn't fold them chickens up into them coops at first, but then I stuck the coops up

on aidge and they worked all right, though I will admit they was a comical sight. At the railroad one of them

towerist trains had just slowed down to a halt as I come up, and the towerist was paradin' up and down

allowin' they was particular enjoyin' of the warm Californy sunshine. One old terrapin, with grey chin

whiskers, projected over, with his wife, and took a peek through the slats of my coop. He straightened up like

"Marthy," says he to the old woman, "this will be about all! We come out from Ioway to see the Wonders of

Californy, but I can't go nothin' stronger than this. If these is chickens, I don't want to see no Big Trees."

Well, I sold them chickens all right for a dollar and two bits, which was better than I expected, and got an

"We are returnin' a sample of your Arts and Crafts chickens with the lovin' marks of the teeth still onto him,"

says they. "Don't send any more till they stops pursuin' of the nimble grasshopper. Dentist bill will foller."

With the letter came the remains of one of the chickens. Tusky and I, very indignant, cooked her for supper.

She was tough, all right. We thought she might do better biled, so we put her in the pot over night. Nary bit.

Well, then we got interested. Tusky kep' the fire goin' and I rustled greasewood. We cooked her three days

and three nights. At the end of that time she was sort of pale and frazzled, but still givin' points to

threeyearold jerky on cohesion and other uncompromisin' forces of Nature. We buried her then, and went

There we could gaze on the smilin' landscape, dotted by about four hundred longlaigged chickens swoopin'

"We can't," murmured Tusky, inspired. "We can't. It's born in 'em; it's a primal instinct, like the love of a

mother for her young, and it can't be eradicated! Them chickens is constructed by a divine providence for the

express purpose of chasin' grasshoppers, jest as the beaver is made for buildin' dams, and the cowpuncher is

made for whisky and farogames. We can't keep 'em from it. If we was to shut 'em in a dark cellar, they'd

flop after imaginary grasshoppers in their dreams, and die emaciated in the midst of plenty. Jimmy, we're up

agin the Cosmos, the oversoul" Oh, he had the medicine tongue, Tusky had, and risin' on the wings of

eloquence that way, he had me faded in ten minutes. In fifteen I was wedded solid to the notion that the

bottom had dropped out of the chicken business. I think now that if we'd shut them hens up, we might

"Tuscarora Maxillary," says I, "did you ever stop to entertain that beautiful thought that if all the

dumfoolishness possessed now by the human race could be gathered together, and lined up alongside of us,

We quit the notion of chickens for profit right then and there, but we couldn't quit the place. We hadn't much

money, for one thing, and then we, kind of liked loafin' around and raisin' a little garden truck, andoh,

well, I might as well say so, we had a notion about placers in the dry wash back of the house you know how it

is. So we stayed on, and kept araisin' these longlaigs for the fun of it. I used to like to watch 'em projectin'

So Tusky and I lived alone there together, happy as ducks in Arizona. About onc't in a month somebody'd

pike along the road. She wasn't much of a road, generally more chuckholes than bumps, though sometimes it

was the other way around. Unless it happened to be a man horseback or maybe a freighter without the fear of

God in his soul, we didn't have no words with them; they was too busy cussin' the highways and generally too

One day early in the year, when the 'dobe mud made ruts to add to the bumps, one of these automobeels went

past. It was the first Tusky and me had seen in them parts, so we run out to view her. Owin' to the high spots

on the road, she looked like one of these movin' picters, as to blur and wobble; sounded like a cyclone

"Which them folks don't seem to be enjoyin' of the scenery," says I to Tusky. "Do you reckon that there blue

"It's langwidge," says he. "Did you ever stop to think that all the words in the dictionary stretched end to end

But at that minute I catched sight of somethin' brass lyin' in the road. It proved to be a curledup sort of horn

with a rubber bulb on the end. I squoze the bulb and jumped twenty foot over the remark she made.

"Oh, did it?" says I, my nerves still wrong. "I thought maybe it had growed up from the soil like a toadstool."

About this time we abolished the wire chicken corrals, because we needed some of the wire. Them longlaigs

thereupon scattered all over the flat searchin' out their prey. When feed time come I had to screech my lungs

out gettin' of 'em in, and then sometimes they didn't all hear. It was plumb discouragin', and I mighty nigh

made up my mind to quit 'em, but they had come to be sort of pets, and I hated to turn 'em down. It used to

tickle Tusky almost to death to see me out there hollerin' away like an old bullfrog. He used to come out

reg'lar, with his pipe lit, just to enjoy me. Finally I got mad and opened up on him.

"Oh," he explains, "it just plumb amuses me to see the dumfool at his childish work. Why don't you teach 'em

"Tusky," says I, with feelin', "sometimes you do seem to get a glimmer of real sense."

Well, first off them chickens used to throw backsommersets over that horn. You have no idee how slow

chickens is to learn things. I could tell you things about chickenssay, this yere bluff about roosters bein'

gallant is all wrong. I've watched 'em. When one finds a nice feed he gobbles it so fast that the pieces foller

down his throat like yearlin's through a hole in the fence. It's only when he scratches up a measly onegrain

quicklunch that he calls up the hens and stands noble and selfsacrificin' to one side. That ain't the point,

which is, that after two months I had them longlaigs so they'd drop everythin' and come kitin' at the

HONKHONK of that horn. It was a purty sight to see 'em, sailin' in from all directions twenty foot at a

stride. I was proud of 'em, and named 'em the Honkhonk Breed. We didn't have no others, for by now the

coyotes and bobcats had nailed the straightbreds. There wasn't no wild cat or coyote could catch one of my

We made a little on our placerjust enough to keep interested. Then the supervisors decided to fix our road,

and what's more, THEY DONE IT! That's the only part in this yarn that's hard to believe, but, boys, you'll

have to take it on faith. They ploughed her, and crowned her, and scraped her, and rolled her, and when they

That noonthe day they called her a jobTusky and I sat smokin' our pipes as per usual, when way over

the foothills we seen a cloud of dust and faint to our cars was bore a whizzin' sound. The chickens was

gathered under the cottonwood for the heat of the day, but they didn't pay no attention. Then faint, but clear,

"Honk! honk!" says it, and every one of them chickens woke up, and stood at attention.

"My God!" I yells to Tusky, kickin' over my chair, as I springs to my feet. "Stop 'em! Stop 'em!"

But it was too late. Out the gate sprinted them poor devoted chickens, and up the road they trailed in vain

pursuit. The last we seen of 'em was a mingling of dust and dim figgers goin' thirty mile an hour after a

That was all we seen for the moment. About three o'clock the first straggler came limpin' in, his wings

hangin', his mouth open, his eyes glazed with the heat. By sundown fourteen had returned. All the rest had

disappeared utter; we never seen 'em again. I reckon they just naturally run themselves into a sunstroke and

It takes a long time to learn a chicken a thing, but a heap longer to unlearn him. After that two or three of

these yere automobeels went by every day, all ablowin' of their horns, all kickin' up a hell of a dust. And

every time them fourteen Honkhonks of mine took along after 'em, just as I'd taught 'em to do, layin' to get

to their corn when they caught up. No more of 'em died, but that fourteen did get into elegant trainin'. After a

while they got plumb to enjoyin' it. When you come right down to it, a chicken don't have many amusements

and relaxations in this life. Searchin' for worms, chasin' grasshoppers, and wallerin' in the dust is about the

It was sure a fine sight to see 'em after they got well into the game. About nine o'clock every mornin' they

would saunter down to the rise of the road where they would wait patient until a machine came along. Then it

would warm your heart to see the enthusiasm of them. With, exultant cackles of joy they'd trail in, reachin'

out like quarterhorses, their wings half spread out, their eyes beamin' with delight. At the lower turn they'd

quit. Then, after talkin' it over excitedlike for a few minutes, they'd calm down and wait for another.

After a few months of this sort of trainin' they got purty good at it. I had one twoyearold rooster that made

fiftyfour mile an hour behind one of those sixtyhorsepower Panhandles. When cars didn't come along

often enough, they'd all turn out and chase jackrabbits. They wasn't much fun at that. After a short, brief

sprint the rabbit would crouch down plumb terrified, while the Honkhonks pulled off triumphal dances

Our ranch got to be purty well known them days among automobeelists. The strength of their cars was

horsepower, of course, but the speed of them they got to ratin' by chickenpower. Some of them used to

come way up from Los Angeles just to try out a new car along our road with the Honkhonks for

pacemakers. We charged them a little somethin', and then, too, we opened up the roadhouse and the bar, so

we did purty well. It wasn't necessary to work any longer at that bogus placer. Evenin's we sat around outside

and swapped yarns, and I bragged on my chickens. The chickens would gather round close to listen.

They liked to hear their praises sung, all right. You bet they sabe! The only reason a chicken, or any other

Why, we used to run races with 'em. Some of us would hold two or more chickens back of a chalk line, and

the starter'd blow the horn from a hundred yards to a mile away, dependin' on whether it was a sprint or for

distance. We had pools on the results, gave odds, made books, and kept records. After the thing got knowed

"How so?" urged Charley, after a pause. "Them chickens," continued the stranger, after a moment, "stood

around listenin' to me abraggin' of what superior fowls they was until they got all puffed up. They wouldn't

have nothin' whatever to do with the ordinary chickens we brought in for eatin' purposes, but stood around

lookin' bored when there wasn't no sport doin'. They got to be just like that Four Hundred you read about in

the papers. It was one continual round of grasshopper balls, race meets, and afternoon henparties. They got

idle and haughty, just like folks. Then come race suicide. They got to feelin' so aristocratic the hens wouldn't

"Windy Bill's snake" began the narrator genially. "Stranger," broke in Windy Bill, with great emphasis, "as

to that snake, I want you to understand this: yereafter in my estimation that snake is nothin' but an ornery

Buck Johnson was American born, but with a black beard and a dignity of manner that had earned him the

title of Senor. He had drifted into southeastern Arizona in the days of Cochise and Victorio and Geronimo.

He had persisted, and so in time had come to control the waterand hence the grazingof nearly all the

Soda Springs Valley. His troubles were many, and his difficulties great. There were the ordinary problems of

lean and dry years. There were also the extraordinary problems of devastating Apaches; rivals for early and

Senor Buck Johnson was a man of capacity, courage, directness of method, and perseverance. Especially the

latter. Therefore he had survived to see the Apaches subdued, the range rights adjusted, his cattle increased to

thousands, grazing the area of a principality. Now, all the energy and fire of his frontiersman's nature he had

turned to wiping out the third uncertainty of an uncertain business. He found it a task of some magnitude.

For Senor Buck Johnson lived just north of that terra incognita filled with the mystery of a double chance of

death from man or the flaming desert known as the Mexican border. There, by natural gravitation, gathered

all the desperate characters of three States and two republics. He who rode into it took good care that no one

should ride behind him, lived warily, slept light, and breathed deep when once he had again sighted the

familiar peaks of Cochise's Stronghold. No one professed knowledge of those who dwelt therein. They

moved, mysterious as the desert illusions that compassed them about. As you rode, the ranges of mountains

visibly changed form, the monstrous, snaky, sealike growths of the cactus clutched at your stirrup, mock

lakes sparkled and dissolved in the middle distance, the sun beat hot and merciless, the powdered dry alkali

beat hotly and mercilessly backand strange, grim men, swarthy, bearded, heavily armed, with redrimmed

unshifting eyes, rode silently out of the mists of illusion to look on you steadily, and then to ride silently back

into the desert haze. They might be only the herders of the gaunt cattle, or again they might belong to the Lost

Legion that peopled the country. All you could know was that of the men who entered in, but few returned.

Directly north of this unknown land you encountered parallel fences running across the country. They

enclosed nothing, but offered a check to the cattle drifting toward the clutch of the renegades, and an obstacle

Of cattlerustling there are various forms. The boldest consists quite simply of running off a bunch of stock,

hustling it over the Mexican line, and there selling it to some of the big Sonora ranch owners. Generally this

sort means war. Also are there subtler means, grading in skill from the rebranding through a wet blanket,

through the crafty refashioning of a brand to the various methods of separating the cow from her unbranded

calf. In the course of his task Senor Buck Johnson would have to do with them all, but at present he existed in

Already be had fought two pitched battles and had won them both. His cattle increased, and he became rich.

Nevertheless he knew that constantly his resources were being drained. Time and again he and his new Texas

foreman, Jed Parker, had followed the trail of a stampeded bunch of twenty or thirty, followed them on down

through the Soda Springs Valley to the cut drift fences, there to abandon them. For, as yet, an armed force

would be needed to penetrate the borderland. Once he and his men bad experienced the glory of a night

pursuit. Then, at the drift fences, he had fought one of his battles. But it was impossible adequately to patrol

Buck Johnson did his best, but it was like stepping with sand the innumerable little leaks of a dam. Did his

riders watch toward the Chiricahuas, then a score of beef steers disappeared from Grant's Pass forty miles

away. Pursuit here meant leaving cattle unguarded there. It was useless, and the Senor soon perceived that

For this purpose he began slowly to strengthen the forces of his riders. Men were coming in from Texas.

They were good men, addicted to the grassrope, the double cinch, and the oxbow stirrup. Senor Johnson

"Jed," said Senor Johnson to his foreman, "the next son of a gun that rustles any of our cows is sure loading

himself full of trouble. We'll hit his trail and will stay with it, and we'll reach his cattlerustling conscience

So it came about that a little army crossed the drift fences and entered the border country. Two days later it

The reason for the defeat was quite simple. The thief had run his cattle through the lava beds where the trail

at once became difficult to follow. This delayed the pursuing party; they ran out of water, and, as there was

among them not one man well enough acquainted with the country to know where to find more, they had to

"No use, Buck," said Jed. "We'd any of us come in on a gun play, but we can't buck the desert. We'll have to

"There's Pereza," suggested Parker. "It's the only town down near that country."

Next day he rode away in search of a guide. The third evening he was back again, much discouraged.

"The country's no good," he explained. "The regular inhabitants 're a set of Mexican bums and old soaks. The

cowmen's all from north and don't know nothing more than we do. I found lots who claimed to know that

country, but when I told 'em what I wanted they shied like a colt. I couldn't hire'em, for no money, to go

down in that country. They ain't got the nerve. I took two days to her, too, and rode out to a ranch where they

said a man lived who knew all about it down there. Nary riffle. Man looked all right, but his tail went down

like the rest when I told him what we wanted. Seemed plumb scairt to death. Says he lives too close to the

gang. Says they'd wipe him out sure if he done it. Seemed plumb SCAIRT." Buck Johnson grinned. "I told

him so and he got hosstyle right off. Didn't seem no ways scairt of me. I don't know what's the matter with

That night a bunch of steers was stolen from the very corrals of the home ranch. The home ranch was far

north, near Fort Sherman itself, and so had always been considered immune from attack. Consequently these

For the first time Buck Johnson lost his head and his dignity. He ordered the horses.

"I'm going to follow that into Sonora," he shouted to Jed Parker. "This thing's got to stop!"

"You can't make her, Buck," objected the foreman. "You'll get held up by the desert, and, if that don't finish

you, they'll tangle you up in all those little mountains down there, and ambush you, and massacre you. You

"I don't give a " exploded Senor Johnson, "if they do. No man can slap my face and not get a run for it."

"Senor," said he, at last,"it's no good; you can't do it. You got to have a guide. You wait three days and I'll get

"All right," he agreed, "and you can say for me that I'll pay five thousand dollars in gold and give all the men

and horses he needs to the man who has the nerve to get back that bunch of cattle, and bring in the man who

At about ten o'clock of the Fourth of July a rider topped the summit of the last swell of land, and loped his

animal down into the single street of Pereza. The buildings on either side were flatroofed and coated with

plaster. Over the sidewalks extended wooden awnings, beneath which opened very wide doors into the

coolness of saloons. Each of these places ran a bar, and also games of roulette, faro, craps, and stud poker.

The day was already hot with the dry, breathless, but exhilarating, beat of the desert. A throng of men idling

at the edge of the sidewalks, jostling up and down their centre, or eddying into the places of amusement,

acknowledged the power of summer by loosening their collars, carrying their coats on their arms. They were

as yet busily engaged in recognising acquaintances. Later they would drink freely and gamble, and perhaps

fight. Toward all but those whom they recognised they preserved an attitude of potential suspicion, for here

were gathered the "bad men" of the border countries. A certain jealousy or touchy egotism lest the other man

be considered quicker on the trigger, bolder, more aggressive than himself, kept each strung to tension. An

occasional shot attracted little notice. Men in the cowcountries shoot as casually as we strike matches, and

As the rider entered the one street, however, a more definite cause of excitement drew the loose population

toward the centre of the road. Immediately their mass blotted out what had interested them. Curiosity

attracted the saunterers; then in turn the frequenters of the bars and gambling games. In a very few moments

the barkeepers, gamblers, and lookout men, held aloof only by the necessities of their calling, alone of all

The stranger pushed his horse resolutely to the outer edge of the crowd where, from his point of vantage, he

could easily overlook their heads. He was a quietappearing young fellow, rather neatly dressed in the border

costume, rode a "centre fire," or singlecinch, saddle, and wore no chaps. He was what is known as a

"twogun man": that is to say, he wore a heavy Colt's revolver on either hip. The fact that the lower ends of

his holsters were tied down, in order to facilitate the easy withdrawal of the revolvers, seemed to indicate that

he expected to use them. He had furthermore a quiet grey eye, with the glint of steel that bore out the

The newcomer dropped his reins on his pony's neck, eased himself to an attitude of attention, and looked

down gravely on what was taking place. He saw over the heads of the bystanders a tall, muscular, wildeyed

man, hatless, his hair rumpled into staring confusion, his right sleeve rolled to his shoulder, a wickedlooking

nineinch knife in his hand, and a red bandana handkerchief hanging by one corner from his teeth.

"Dare's anyone to take the other end of that handkerchief in his teeth, and fight it out without letting go."

He settled himself to closer attention. The wildeyed man was talking rapidly. What he said cannot be

printed here. Mainly was it derogatory of the southern countries. Shortly it became boastful of the northern,

He swaggered up and down, becoming always the more insolent as his challenge remained untaken.

"Not me!" negatived the other vigorously. "I'll go yore little old gunfight to a finish, but I don't want any cold

steel in mine. Ugh! it gives me the shivers. It's a reg'lar Mexican trick! With a gun it's down and out, but this

The newcomer said nothing, but fixed his eye again on the raging man with the knife.

"Not any!" denied the other with emphasis. "He's jest drunk enough to be crazy mad."

The newcomer shrugged his shoulders and cast his glance searchingly over the fringe of the crowd. It rested

"You fellows make me tired," observed the stranger, dismounting. "He's got the whole townful of you bluffed

He hung his coat on his saddle, shouldered his way through the press, which parted for him readily, and

Jed Parker straightened his back, rolled up the bandana handkerchief, and thrust it into his pocket, hit flat

with his hand the touselled mass of his hair, and thrust the long hunting knife into its sheath.

Instantly the twogun man had jerked loose his weapons and was covering the foreman.

Not jest that way," explained Parker. "My gun is on my hoss, and you can have this old toadsticker if you

want it. I been looking for you, and took this way of finding you. Now, let's go talk."

The stranger looked him in the eye for nearly a half minute without lowering his revolvers.

But the crowd, missing the purport, and in fact the very occurrence of this colloquy, did not understand. It

thought the bluff had been called, and naturally, finding harmless what had intimidated it, gave way to an

"You bluffer!" shouted a voice, "don't you think you can run any such ranikaboo here!"

For answer the twogun man turned and walked steadily in the direction of the man who had shouted. The

latter's hand strayed uncertainly toward his own weapon, but the movement paused when the stranger's clear,

"This gentleman," pointed out the twogun man softly, "is an old friend of mine. Don't you get to calling of

On the outskirts be encountered the Mexican from whom he bad borrowed the knife.

"Here, Tony," said he with a slight laugh, "here's a peso. You'll find your knife back there where I had to drop

He entered a saloon, nodded to the proprietor, and led the way through it to a boxlike room containing a

"I'm looking for a man with nerve," explained Parker, with equal succinctness. "You're the man."

"I'm foreman of the Lazy Y of Soda Springs Valley range," explained Parker. "I'm looking for a man with

sand enough and sabe of the country enough to lead a posse after cattlerustlers into the border country."

"So do plenty of others, but their eyes stick out like two raw oysters when you mention the border country.

They mounted their horses and rode the rest of the day. The desert compassed them about, marvellously

changing shape and colour, and every character, with all the noiselessness of phantasmagoria. At evening the

desert stars shone steady and unwinking, like the flames of candles. By moonrise they came to the home

The buildings and corrals lay dark and silent against the moonlight that made of the plain a sea of mist. The

two men unsaddled their horses and turned them loose in the wirefenced "pasture," the necessary noises of

their movements sounding sharp and clear against the velvet hush of the night. After a moment they walked

stiffly past the sheds and cook shanty, past the men's bunk houses, and the tall windmill silhouetted against

the sky, to the main building of the home ranch under its great cottonwoods. There a light still burned, for

The stranger had stepped inside and carefully closed the door behind him. The lamplight threw into relief the

bold, free lines of his face, the details of his costume powdered thick with alkali, the shiny butts of the two

guns in their open holsters tied at the bottom. Equally it defined the resolute countenance of Buck Johnson

turned up in inquiry. The two men examined each otherand liked each other at once.

The stranger perched gingerly on the edge of a chair, with an appearance less of embarrassment than of

"Very well," said Buck Johnson. He paused a moment, collecting his thoughts. "There's too much

cattlerustling here. I'm going to stop it. I've got good men here ready to take the job, but no one who knows

the country south. Three days ago I had a bunch of cattle stolen right here from the homeranch corrals, and

by one man, at that. It wasn't much of a bunchabout twenty headbut I'm going to make a starter right

here, and now. I'm going to get that bunch back, and the man who stole them, if I have to go to hell to do it.

And I'm going to do the same with every case of rustling that comes up from now on. I don't care if it's only

one cow, I'm going to get it backevery trip. Now, I want to know if you'll lead a posse down into the south

"I offer you five thousand dollars in gold if you'll bring back those cows and the man who stole 'em,"

"And the man. What's more, I want that money here when I come in. I don't aim to stay in this country over

"Climate not healthy for you?" he hazarded. "I guess you'd be safe enough all right with us. But suit yourself.

The next morning Buck Johnson took a trip down into the "pasture" of five hundred wirefenced acres.

"He means business," he confided to Jed Parker, on his return. "That cavallo of his is a heap sight better than

the Shorty horse we let him take. Jed, you found your man with nerve, all right. How did you do it?"

The two settled down to wait, if not with confidence, at least with interest. Sometimes, remembering the

desperate character of the outlaws, their fierce distrust of any intruder, the wildness of the country, Buck

Johnson and his foreman inclined to the belief that the stranger had undertaken a task beyond the powers of

any one man. Again, remembering the stranger's cool grey eye, the poise of his demeanour, the quickness of

his movements, and the two guns with tied holsters to permit of easy withdrawal, they were almost persuaded

"He's one of those longchance fellows," surmised Jed. "He likes excitement. I see that by the way he takes

up with my knife play. He'd rather leave his hide on the fence than stay in the corral."

"Well, he's all right," replied Senor Buck Johnson,"and if he ever gets back, which same I'm some doubtful

In pursuance of this he rode in to Willets, where shortly the overland train brought him from Tucson the five

In the meantime the regular life of the ranch went on. Each morning Sang, the Chinese cook, rang the great

bell, summoning the men. They ate, and then caught up the saddle horses for the day, turning those not

wanted from the corral into the pasture. Shortly they jingled away in different directions, two by two, on the

slow Spanish trot of the cowpuncher. All day long thus they would ride, without food or water for man or

beast, looking the range, identifying the stock, branding the young calves, examining generally into the state

of affairs, gazing always with grave eyes on the magnificent, flaming, changing, beautiful, dreadful desert of

the Arizona plains. At evening when the coloured atmosphere, catching the last glow, threw across the

Chiricahuas its veil of mystery, they jingled in again, two by two, untired, unhasting, the glory of the desert in

And all the day long, while they were absent, the cattle, too, made their pilgrimage, straggling in singly, in

pairs, in bunches, in long files, leisurely, ruminantly, without haste. There, at the long troughs filled by the

windmill of the blindfolded pump mule, they drank, then filed away again into the mists of the desert. And

Senor Buck Johnson, or his foreman, Parker, examined them for their condition, noting the increase,

remarking the strays from another range. Later, perhaps, they, too, rode abroad. The same thing happened at

nine other ranches from five to ten miles apart, where dwelt other fierce, silent men all under the authority of

And when night fell, and the topaz and violet and saffron and amethyst and mauve and lilac had faded

suddenly from the Chiricahuas, like a veil that has been rent, and the ramparts had become slategrey and

then blackthe softbreathed night wandered here and there over the desert, and the land fell under an

So the days went by, wonderful, fashioning the ways and the characters of men. Seven passed. Buck Johnson

and his foreman began to look for the stranger. Eight, they began to speculate. Nine, they doubted. On the

They knew him first by the soft lowing of cattle. Jed Parker, dazzled by the lamp, peered out from the door,

and made him out dimly turning the animals into the corral. A moment later his pony's hoofs impacted softly

"I'm late," said he briefly, glancing at the clock, which indicated ten; "but I'm here."

His manner was quick and sharp, almost breathless, as though he had been running.

"I have the money here," replied Buck Johnson, laying his hand against a drawer, "and it's ready for you

when you've earned it. I don't care so much for the cattle. What I wanted is the man who stole them. Did you

The twogun man seemed suddenly to loom large in the doorway. The muzzles of his revolvers covered the

"I told you I'd bring back the cows and the one who rustled them," he snapped. "I've never lied to a man yet.

Your stock is in the corral. I'll trouble you for that five thousand. I'm the man who stole your cattle!"

The man of whom I am now to tell you came to Arizona in the early days of Chief Cochise. He settled in the

Soda Springs Valley, and there persisted in spite of the devastating forays of that Apache. After a time he

owned all the wells and springs in the valley, and so, naturally, controlled the grazing on that extensive free

range. Once a day the cattle, in twos and threes, in bands, in strings, could be seen winding leisurely down the

deeptrodden and converging trails to the water troughs at the home ranch, there leisurely to drink, and then

leisurely to drift away into the saffron and violet and amethyst distances of the desert. At ten other outlying

ranches this daily scene was repeated. All these cattle belonged to the man, great by reason of his priority in

the country, the balance of his even character, and the grim determination of his spirit.

When he had first entered Soda Springs Valley his companions had called him Buck Johnson. Since then his

form had squared, his eyes had steadied to the serenity of a great authority, his mouth, shadowed by the

moustache and the beard, had closed straight in the line of power and taciturnity. There was about him more

than a trace of the Spanish. So now he was known as Senor Johnson, although in reality he was straight

Senor Johnson lived at the home ranch with a Chinese cook, and Parker, his foreman. The home ranch was of

adobe, built with loopholes like a fort. In the obsolescence of this necessity, other buildings had sprung up

unfortified. An adobe bunkhouse for the cowpunchers, an adobe blacksmith shop, a long, low stable, a shed,

a windmill and pondlike reservoir, a whole system of corrals of different sizes, a walledin vegetable

gardenthese gathered to themselves cottonwoods from the moisture of their being, and so added each a

little to the green spot in the desert. In the smallest corral, between the stable and the shed, stood a buckboard

and a heavy wagon, the only wheeled vehicles about the place. Under the shed were rows of saddles, riatas,

spurs mounted with silver, bits ornamented with the same metal, curved short irons for the range branding,

long, heavy "stamps" for the corral branding. Behind the stable lay the "pasture," a thousand acres of desert

fenced in with wire. There the hardy cowponies sought out the sparse, but nutritious, bunch grass, sixty of

And all about lay the desert, shimmering, changing, manytinted, wonderful, hemmed in by the mountains

that seemed tenuous and thin, like beautiful mists, and by the sky that seemed hard and polished like a

Each morning at six o'clock the ten cowpunchers of the home ranch drove the horses to the corral, neatly

roped the dozen to be "kept up" for that day, and rewarded the rest with a feed of grain. Then they rode away

at a little fox trot, two by two. All day long they travelled thus, conducting the business of the range, and at

night, having completed the circle, they jingled again into the corral. At the ten other ranches this programme

had been duplicated. The halfhundred men of Senor Johnson's outfit had covered the area of a European

principality. And all of it, every acre, every spear of grass, every cactus prickle, every creature on it,

practically belonged to Senor Johnson, because Senor Johnson owned the water, and without water one

This result had not been gained without struggle. The fact could be read in the settled lines of Senor Johnson's

face, and the great calm of his grey eye. Indian days drove him often to the shelter of the loopholed adobe

ranch house, there to await the soldiers from the Fort, in plain sight thirty miles away on the slope that led to

the foot of the Chiricahuas. He lost cattle and some men, but the profits were great, and in time Cochise,

Geronimo, and the lesser lights had flickered out in the winds of destiny. The sheep terror merely threatened,

for it was soon discovered that with the feed of Soda Springs Valley grew a burr that annoyed the flocks

beyond reason, so the bleating scourge swept by forty miles away. Cattle rustling so near the Mexican line

was an easy matter. For a time Senor Johnson commanded an armed band. He was lord of the high, the low,

and the middle justice. He violated international ethics, and for the laws of nations he substituted his own.

One by one he annihilated the thieves of cattle, sometimes in open fight, but oftener by surprise and

deliberate massacre. The country was delivered. And then, with indefatigable energy, Senor Johnson became

a skilled detective. Alone, or with Parker, his foreman, he rode the country through, gathering evidence.

When the evidence was unassailable he brought offenders to book. The rebranding through a wet blanket he

knew and could prove; the earmarking of an unbranded calf until it could be weaned he understood; the

paring of hoofs to prevent travelling he could tell as far as he could see; the crafty alteration of similar

brandsas when a Mexican changed Johnson's Lazy Y to a Dumbbell Barhe saw through at a glance. In

short, the hundred and one petty tricks of the sneakthief he ferreted out, in danger of his life. Then he sent to

Phoenix for a Rangerand that was the last of the Dumbbell Bar brand, or the Three Link Bar brand, or the

Hour Glass Brand, or a half dozen others. The Soda Springs Valley acquired a reputation for good order.

Senor Johnson at this stage of his career found himself dropping into a routine. In March began the spring

branding, then the corralling and breaking of the wild horses, the summer rangeriding, the great fall

roundup, the shipping of cattle, and the riding of the winter range. This happened over and over again.

You and I would not have suffered from ennui. The roping and throwing and branding, the wild swing and

dash of handling stock, the mad races to head the mustangs, the fierce combats to subdue these raging wild

beasts to the saddle, the spectacle of the roundup with its brutish multitudes and its graceful riders, the dust

and monotony and excitement and glory of the Trail, and especially the hundreds of incidental and gratuitous

adventures of bears and antelope, of thirst and heat, of the joy of taking care of one's selfall these would

But to Senor Johnson it had become an old story. After the days of construction the days of accomplishment

seemed to him lean. His men did the work and reaped the excitement. Senor Johnson never thought now of

riding the wild horses, of swinging the rope coiled at his saddle horn, or of rounding ahead of the flying

herds. His inspections were business inspections. The country was tame. The leather chaps with the silver

conchas hung behind the door. The Colt's fortyfive depended at the head of the bed. Senor Johnson rode in

mufti. Of his cowboy days persisted still the highheeled boots and spurs, the broad Stetson hat, and the

The Colt's fortyfive had been the last to go. Finally one evening Senor Johnson received an express

package. He opened it before the undemonstrative Parker. It proved to contain a pocket "gun"a

nickelplated, thirtyeight calibre Smith Wesson "fiveshooter." Senor Johnson examined it a little

Parker turned it over and over, as a child a rattle. Then he returned it to its owner.

"Senor," said he, "if ever you shoot me with that little old gun, AND I find it out the same day, I'll just raise

"I don't reckon she'd INJURE a man much," agreed the Senor, "but perhaps she'd call his attention."

However, the "little old gun" took its place, not in Senor Johnson's hip pocket, but inside the front waistband

of his trousers, and the old shiny Colt's fortyfive, with its worn leather "Texas style" holster, became a

Thus, from a frontiersman dropped Senor Johnson to the status of a property owner. In a general way he had

to attend to his interests before the cattlemen's association; he had to arrange for the buying and shipping, and

the rest was leisure. He could now have gone away somewhere as far as time went. So can a fish live in

treesas far as time goes. And in the daily riding, riding, riding over the range he found the opportunity for

Every day, as always, Senor Johnson rode abroad over the land. His surroundings had before been accepted

casually as a more or less pertinent setting of action and condition. Now he sensed some of the fascination of

He noticed many things before unnoticed. As he jingled loosely along on his cowhorse, he observed how

the animal waded fetlock deep in the gorgeous orange California poppies, and then he looked up and about,

and saw that the rich colour carpeted the landscape as far as his eye could reach, so that it seemed as though

he could ride on and on through them to the distant Chiricahuas. Only, close under the hills, lay, unobtrusive,

a narrow streak of grey. And in a few hours he had reached the streak of grey, and ridden out into it to find

himself the centre of a limitless alkali plain, so that again it seemed the valley could contain nothing else of

Looking back, Senor Johnson could discern a tenuous ribbon of orangethe poppies. And perhaps ahead a

little shadow blotted the face of the alkali, which, being reached and entered, spread like fire until it, too,

filled the whole plain, until it, too, arrogated to itself the right of typifying Soda Springs Valley as a

shimmering prairie of mesquite. Flowered upland, dead lowland, brush, cactus, volcanic rock, sand, each of

these for the time being occupied the whole space, broad as the sea. In the circlet of the mountains was room

Among the foothills Senor Johnson, for the first time, appreciated colour. Hundreds of acres of flowers filled

the velvet creases of the little hills and washed over the smooth, rounded slopes so accurately in the placing

and manner of tinted shadows that the mind had difficulty in believing the colour not to have been shaded in

actually by free sweeps of some gigantic brush. A dozen shades of pinks and purples, a dozen of blues, and

then the flame reds, the yellows, and the vivid greens. Beyond were the mountains in their glory of volcanic

rocks, rich as the tapestry of a Florentine palace. And, modifying all the others, the tinted atmosphere of the

southwest, refracting the sun through the infinitesimal earth motes thrown up constantly by the wind devils

of the desert, drew before the scene a delicate and gauzy veil of lilac, of rose, of saffron, of amethyst, or of

mauve, according to the time of day. Senor Johnson discovered that looking at the landscape upside down

accentuated the colour effects. It amused him vastly suddenly to bend over his saddle horn, the top of his

head nearly touching his horse's mane. The distant mountains at once started out into redder prominence;

"She's the prettiest country God ever made!" exclaimed Senor Johnson with entire conviction.

And no matter where he went, nor into how familiar country he rode, the shapes of illusion offered always

variety. One day the Chiricahuas were a tableland; next day a series of castellated peaks; now an anvil; now a

saw tooth; and rarely they threw a magnificent suspension bridge across the heavens to their neighbours, the

ranges on the west. Lakes rippling in the wind and breaking on the shore, cattle big as elephants or small as

rabbits, distances that did not exist and forests that never were, beds of lava along the hills swearing to a

cloud shadow, while the sky was polished like a precious stonethese, and many other beautiful and

marvellous but empty shows the great desert displayed lavishly, with the glitter and inconsequence of a

dream. Senor Johnson sat on his horse in the hot sun, his chin in his band, his elbow on the pommel,

Occasionally, belated, he saw the stars, the wonderful desert stars, blazing clear and unflickering, like the

flames of candles. Or the moon worked her necromancies, hemming him in by mountains ten thousand feet

high through which there was no pass. And then as he rode, the mountains shifted like the scenes in a theatre,

and he crossed the little sand dunes out from the dream country to the adobe corrals of the home ranch.

All these things, and many others, Senor Johnson now saw for the first time, although he had lived among

them for twenty years. It struck him with the freshness of a surprise. Also it reacted chemically on his mental

processes to generate a new power within him. The new power, being as yet unapplied, made him uneasy and

"Those tourists in their nickelplated Pullmans call this a desert. Desert, hell! Look at them flowers!"

The foreman cast an eye on a glorious silken mantle of purple, a hundred yards broad.

"You bet," agreed the foreman; "now you're talking! I always, said they was mineralised enough to make a

This was unsatisfactory. Senor Johnson grew more restless. His critical eye began to take account of small

details. At the ranch house one evening he, on a sudden, bellowed loudly for Sang, the Chinese servant.

"There, and there!" shouted the cattleman. "Look at them old newspapers and them gun rags! The place is

The papers and gun rags had lain there unnoticed for nearly a year. Senor Johnson kicked them savagely.

"It's time we took a brace here," he growled, "we're livin' like a lot of Oilers."[5]

Sang hurried out for a broom. Senor Johnson sat where he was, his heavy, square brows knit. Suddenly he

It was a Kansas City paper and, by a strange coincidence, was dated exactly a year before. The sheet Senor

Johnson happened to pick up was one usually passed over by the average newspaper reader. It contained only

columns of little two and threeline advertisements classified as Help Wanted, Situations Wanted, Lost and

Found, and Personal. The latter items Senor Johnson commenced to read while awaiting Sang and the broom.

The notices were five in number. The first three were of the mysterious newspapercorrespondence type, in

which Birdie beseeches Jack to meet her at the fountain; the fourth advertised a clairvoyant. Over the fifth

Senor Johnson paused long. It reads "WANTED.By an intelligent and refined lady of pleasing appearance,

Just then Sang returned with the broom and began noisily to sweep together the debris. The rustling of papers

"Get out of here, you debased Mongolian," he shouted; "can't you see I'm reading?"

Sang fled, sorely puzzled, for the Senor was calm and unexcited and aloof in his everyday habit.

Soon Jed Parker, tall, wiry, hawknosed, deliberate, came into the room and flung his broad hat and spurs

into the corner. Then he proceeded to light his pipe and threw the burned match on the floor.

"Been over to look at the Grant Pass range," he announced cheerfully. "She's no good. Drier than cork legs.

"Jed," quoth the Senor solemnly, "I wisht you'd hang up your hat like I have. It don't look good there on the

Sang brought in supper and slung it on the red and white squares of oilcloth. Then he moved the lamp and

"And this!" went on the Senor, picking up what purported to be plum duff: "Bog down a few currants in

He ate in silence, then pushed back his chair and went to the window, gazing through its grimy panes at the

Jed laid down his busy knife and idle fork to gaze on his chief with amazement. Buck Johnson, the austere,

the aloof, the grimly taciturn, the dangerous, to be thus complaining like a querulous woman!

"I'm sick of it," he growled; "this thing will kill me off. I might as well go be a buck nun and be done with it."

For an hour he wrote and destroyed. The floor became littered with torn papers. Then he enveloped a meagre

result. Parker had watched him in silence. The Senor looked up to catch his speculative eye. His own eye

twinkled a little, but the twinkle was determined and sinister, with only an alloy of humour.

"Senor," ventured Parker slowly, "this event sure knocks me hellwest and crooked. If the loco you have

culled hasn't paralysed your speaking parts, would you mind telling me what in the name of heaven, hell, and

"To a lady," replied the Senor, "an intelligent and refined lady of pleasing appearance."

Although the paper was a year old, Senor Johnson in due time received an answer from Kansas. A

correspondence ensued. Senor Johnson enshrined above the big fireplace the photograph of a woman. Before

this he used to stand for hours at a time slowly constructing in his mind what he had hitherto lackedan

ideal of woman and of home. This ideal he used sometimes to express to himself and to the ironical Jed.

"It must sure be nice to have a little woman waitin' for you when you come in off'n the desert."

Or: "Now, a woman would have them windows just blooming with flowers and white curtains and such

Or: "I bet that Sang would get a wiggle on him with his little old cleaning duds if he had a woman ahold of

Slowly he reconstructed his life, the life of the ranch, in terms of this hypothesised feminine influence. Then

matters came to an understanding, Senor Johnson had sent his own portrait. Estrella Sands wrote back that

she adored big black beards, but she was afraid of him, he had such a fascinating bad eye: no woman could

resist him. Senor Johnson at once took things for granted, sent on to Kansas a preposterous sum of "expense"

money and a railroad ticket, and raided Goodrich's store at Willets, a hundred miles away, for all manner of

gaudy carpets, silverware, fancy lamps, works of art, pianos, linen, and gimcracks for the adornment of the

ranch house. Furthermore, he offered wages more than equal to a hundred miles of desert to a young Irish

girl, named Susie O'Toole, to come out as housekeeper, decorator, boss of Sang and another Chinaman, and

Furthermore, he laid off from the range work Brent Palmer, the most skilful man with horses, and set him to

"gentling" a beautiful little sorrel. A sidesaddle had arrived from El Paso. It was "centre fire," which is to say

it had but the single horsehair cinch, broad, tasselled, very genteel in its suggestion of pleasure use only.

Brent could be seen at all times of day, cantering here and there on the sorrel, a blanket tied around his waist

to simulate the long riding skirt. He carried also a sulky and evil gleam in his eye, warning against undue

Once, the baby light of innocence blue in his eye, he inquired if he would be required to dress for dinner.

"Go on, Jed," said he; "you know you ain't got clothes enough to dust a fiddle."

The Senor was happy these days. He showed it by an unwonted joviality of spirit, by a slight but evident

unbending of his Spanish dignity. No longer did the splendour of the desert fill him with a vague yearning

and uneasiness. He looked upon it confidently, noting its various phases with care, rejoicing in each new

development of colour and light, of form and illusion, storing them away in his memory so that their

recurrence should find him prepared to recognise and explain them. For soon he would have someone by his

side with whom to appreciate them. In that sharing be could see the reason for them, the reason for their

One evening he leaned on the corral fence, looking toward the Dragoons. The sun had set behind them.

Gigantic they loomed against the western light. From their summits, like an aureola, radiated the splendour of

the dustmoted air, this evening a deep umber. A faint reflection of it fell across the desert, glorifying the

"I'll take her out on an evening like this," quoth Senor Johnson to himself,"and I'll make her keep her eyes on

the ground till we get right up by Running Bear Knob, and then I'll let her look up all to once. And she'll

surely enjoy this life. I bet she never saw a steer roped in her life. She can ride with me every day out over the

range and I'll show her the busting and the branding and that band of antelope over by the Tall Windmill. I'll

teach her to shoot, too. And we can make little pack trips off in the hills when she gets too hotup there by

He mused, turning over in his mind a new picture of his own life, aims, and pursuits as modified by the

sympathetic and understanding companionship of a woman. He pictured himself as he must seem to her in his

different pursuits. The picturesqueness pleased him. The simple, direct vanity of the manthe wholesome

vanity of a straightforward natureawakened to preen its feathers before the idea of the mate.

The shadows fell. Over the Chiricahuas flared the evening star. The plain, selfluminous with the weird

lucence of the arid lands, showed ghostly. Jed Parker, coming out from the lamplit adobe, leaned his elbows

on the rail in silent company with his chief. He, too, looked abroad. His mind's eye saw what his body's eye

had always told him were the insistent notesthe alkali, the cactus, the sage, the mesquite, the lava, the

choking dust, the blinding beat, the burning thirst. He sighed in the dim half recollection of past days. "I

But Senor Johnson turned on him his steady eyes, filled with the great glory of the desert.

The Overland drew into Willets, coated from engine to observation with white dust. A porter, in strange

contrast of neatness, flung open the vestibule, dropped his little carpeted step, and turned to assist someone. A

Senor Johnson caught his breath in amazement. "God! Ain't she just like her picture!" he exclaimed. He

For a moment he did not step forward to claim her, so she stood looking about her uncertainly, her leather

She was indeed like the photograph. The same fullcurved, compact little figure, the same round face, the

same cupid's bow mouth, the same appealing, large eyes, the same haze of doll's hair. In a moment she caught

sight of Senor Johnson and took two steps toward him, then stopped. The Senor at once came forward.

"You're Mr. Johnson, ain't you?" she inquired, thrusting her little pointed chin forward, and so elevating her

"Yes, ma'am," he acknowledged formally. Then, after a moment's pause: "I hope you're well."

The station loungers, augmented by all the ranchmen and cowboys in town, were examining her closely. She

looked at them in a swift side glance that seemed to gather all their eyes to hers. Then, satisfied that she

possessed the universal admiration, she returned the full force of her attention to the man before her.

"Now you give me your trunk checks," he was saying, "and then we'll go right over and get married."

A little subdued, she followed him to the clergyman's house, where, in the presence of Goodrich, the

storekeeper, and the preacher's wife, the two were united. Then they mounted the buckboard and drove from

Senor Johnson said nothing, because he knew of nothing to say. He drove skilfully and fast through the

gathering dusk. It was a hundred miles to the home ranch, and that hundred miles, by means of five relays of

horses already arranged for, they would cover by morning. Thus they would avoid the dust and heat and high

The sweet night fell. The little desert winds laid soft fingers on their checks. Overhead burned the stars, clear,

unflickering, like candles. Dimly could be seen the horses, their flanks swinging steadily in the square trot.

Ghostly bushes passed them; ghostly rock elevations. Far, in indeterminate distance, lay the outlines of the

mountains. Always, they seemed to recede. The plain, all but invisible, the wagon trail quite so, the depths of

spacethese flung heavy on the soul their weight of mysticism. The woman, until now bolt upright in the

buckboard seat, shrank nearer to the man. He felt against his sleeve the delicate contact of her garment and

thrilled to the touch. A coyote barked sharply from a neighbouring eminence, then trailed off into the

The horses' hoofs rang clear on a hardened bit of the alkali crust, then dully as they encountered again the

dust of the plain. Vast, vague, mysterious in the silence of night, filled with strange influences breathing

through space like damp winds, the desert took them to the heart of her great spaces.

"Buck," she whispered, a little tremblingly. It was the first time she had spoken his name.

But for a time she did not reply. Only the contact against his sleeve increased by ever so little.

Tenderly the man drew her to him. Her head fell against his shoulder and she hid her eyes.

"There, little girl," he reassured her, his big voice rich and musical. "There's nothing to get scairt of, I'll take

"I don't know," she laughed, but still with a tremble in her tones. "It's all so big and lonesome and

They drove on and on. At the end of two hours they stopped. Men with lanterns dazzled their eyes. The

horses were changed, and so out again into the night where the desert seemed to breathe in deep, mysterious

Senor Johnson drove his horses masterfully with his one free hand. The road did not exist, except to his

trained eves. They seemed to be swimming out, out, into a vapour of night with the wind of their going

He tightened his arm around her and she went to sleep, halfwaking at the ranches where the relays waited,

dozing again as soon as the lanterns dropped behind. And Senor Johnson, alone with his horses and the

By grey of the early summer dawn they arrived. The girl wakened, descended, smiling uncertainly at Susie

O'Toole, blinking somnolently at her surroundings. Susie put her to bed in the little southwest room where

hung the shiny Colt's fortyfive in its worn leather "Texasstyle" holster. She murmured incoherent thanks

and sank again to sleep, overcome by the fatigue of unaccustomed travelling, by the potency of the desert air,

Senor Johnson did not sleep. He was tough, and used to it. He lit a cigar and rambled about, now reading the

newspapers he had brought with him, now prowling softly about the building, now visiting the corrals and

outbuildings, once even the thousandacre pasture where his saddlehorse knew him and came to him to

have its forehead rubbed. The dawn broke in good earnest, throwing aside its gauzy draperies of mauve.

Sang, the Chinese cook, built his fire. Senor Johnson forbade him to clang the rising bell, and himself roused

the cowpunchers. The girl slept on. Senor Johnson tiptoed a dozen times to the bedroom door. Once he

ventured to push it open. He looked long within, then shut it softly and tiptoed out into the open, his eyes

"Jed," he said to his foreman, "you don't know how it made me feel. To see her lying there so pink and soft

and pretty, with her yaller hair all tumbled about and a little smile on her there in my old bed, with my old

About noon she emerged from the room, fully refreshed and wide awake. She and Susie O'Toole had

unpacked at least one of the trunks, and now she stood arrayed in shirtwaist and blue skirt.

At once she stepped into the open air and looked about her with considerable curiosity.

Senor Johnson was at her side pressing on her with boyish eagerness the sights of the place. She patted the

stag hounds and inspected the garden. Then, confessing herself hungry, she obeyed with alacrity Sang's call

to an early meal. At the table she ate coquettishly, throwing her birdlike side glances at the man opposite.

"Why, sure!" cried Senor Johnson joyously. "Sang! hi, Sang! Tell Brent Palmer to step in here a minute."

After an interval the cowboy appeared, mincing in on his highheeled boots, his silver spurs jingling, the

fringe of his chaps impacting softly on the leather. He stood at ease, his broad hat in both hands, his dark,

"Shake hands with Mrs. Johnson, Brent. I called you in because she said she wanted to see a real

For an instant the cowpuncher's level brows drew together. Then he caught the woman's glance fair. He

"Oh," cried Estrella, "have I a pony? How nice. And it was so good of you, Mr. Brent. Can't I see him? I want

"Sure you can see him. I don't know as he'll eat sugar. He ain't that educated. Think you could teach him to

They went out toward the corral, the cowboy joining them as a matter of course. Estrella demanded

explanations as she went along. Their progress was leisurely. The blindfolded pump mule interested her.

"And he goes round and round that way all day without stopping, thinking he's really getting somewhere!"

she marvelled. "I think that's a shame! Poor old fellow, to get fooled that way!"

"It is some foolish," said Brent Palmer, "but he ain't any worse off than a cowpony that hikes out twenty

Brent rode up the sorrel bareback. The pretty animal, gentle as a kitten, nevertheless planted his forefeet

"I reckon he ain't used to the sight of a woman," proffered the Senor, disappointed. "He'll get used to you. Go

Estrella approached, but the pony jerked back his head with every symptom of distrust. She forgot the sugar

"He's a perfect beauty," she said at last, "but, my! I'd never dare ride him. I'm awful scairt of horses."

"Oh, Mr. Brent," she exclaimed, "don't think I don't appreciate what you've done. I'm sure he's really just as

The two men conducted her here and there, showing her the various institutions of the place. A man bent near

The horseshoer straightened up and approached. He was a lithe, curlyhaired young boy, with a reckless,

"Tommy, shake hands with Mrs. Johnson," said the Senor. "Mrs. Johnson wants to know if you're the

"No, ma'am," answered the boy directly; "I'm just tacking a shoe on Danger, here. We all does our own

His roving eye examined her countenance respectfully, but with admiration. She caught the admiration and

returned it, covertly but unmistakably, pleased that her charms were appreciated.

They continued their rounds. The sun was very hot and the dust deep. A woman would have known that these

things distressed Estrella. She picked her way through the debris; she dropped her head from the burning; she

felt her delicate garments moistening with perspiration, her hair dampening; the dust sifted up through the air.

Over in the large corral a bronco buster, assisted by two of the cowboys, was engaged in roping and throwing

some wild mustangs. The sight was wonderful, but here the dust billowed in clouds.

"I'm getting a little hot and tired," she confessed at last. "I think I'll go to the house."

But near the shed she stopped again, interested in spite of herself by a bit of repairing Tommy had under way.

The tire of a wagon wheel had been destroyed. Tommy was mending it. On the ground lay a fresh cowhide.

From this Tommy was cutting a wide strip. As she watched lie measured the strip around the circumference

Estrella advanced and felt curiously of the rawhide. Tommy was fastening it to the wheel at the ends only.

"But how can it stay on that way?" she objected. "It'll come right off as soon as you use it."

Senor Johnson stared to see if she might be joking. "Does it shrink?" he repeated slowly. "There ain't nothing

Estrella, incredulous, interested, she could not have told why, stooped again to feel the soft, yielding hide.

"You're joking me because I'm a tenderfoot," she accused brightly. "I know it dries hard, and I'll believe it

"No, that's right, ma'am," broke in Brent Palmer. "It's awful strong. It pulls like a horse when the desert sun

gets on it. You wrap anything up in a piece of that hide and see what happens. Some time you take and wrap

a piece around a potato and put her out in the sun and see how it'll squeeze the water out of her."

"Is that so?" she appealed to Tommy. "I can't tell when they are making fun of me."

"II don't know why" she faltered. "The thought makes me a little sick. Why, isn't it queer? Ugh! it's like

a snake!" She flung it from her energetically and turned toward the ranch house.

The honeymoon developed and the necessary adjustments took place. The latter Senor Johnson had not

foreseen; and yet, when the necessity for them arose, he acknowledged them right and proper.

"Course she don't want to ride over to Circle I with us," he informed his confidant, Jed Parker. "It's a long

ride, and she ain't used to riding yet. Trouble is I've been thinking of doing things with her just as if she was a

This second idea gradually overlaid the first in Senor Johnson's mind. Estrella showed little aptitude or

interest in the rougher side of life. Her husband's statement as to her being still unused to riding was distinctly

a euphemism. Estrella never arrived at the point of feeling safe on a horse. In time she gave up trying, and the

As a spectacle it imposed itself on her interest for a week; but since she could discover no real and vital

concern in the welfare of cows, soon the mere outward show became an old story. Estrella's sleek nature

avoided instinctively all that interfered with bodily wellbeing. When she was cool and wellfed and not

thirsty, and surrounded by a proper degree of feminine daintiness, then she was ready to amuse herself. But

she could not understand the desirability of those pleasures for which a certain price in discomfort must be

paid. As for firearms, she confessed herself frankly afraid of them. That was the point at which her intimacy

The natural level to which these waters fell is easily seen. Quite simply, the Senor found that a wife does not

enter fully into her husband's workaday life. The dreams he had dreamed did not come true.

This was at first a disappointment to him, of course, but the disappointment did not last. Senor Johnson was a

"She'd get sick of it, and I'd get sick of it," he formulated his new philosophy. "Now I got something to come

back to, somebody to look forward to. And it's a WOMAN; it ain't one of these darn gangleleg cowgirls.

The great thing is to feel you BELONG to someone; and that someone nice and cool and fresh and purty is

waitin' for you when you come in tired. It beats that other little old idee of mine slick as a gun barrel."

So, during this, the busy season of the range riding, immediately before the great fall roundups, Senor

Johnson rode abroad all day, and returned to his own hearth as many evenings of the week as he could.

Estrella always saw him coming and stood in the doorway to greet him. He kicked off his spurs, washed and

dusted himself, and spent the evening with his wife. He liked the sound of exactly that phrase, and was fond

"When I get in I'll spend the evening with my wife." "If I don't ride over to Circle I, I'll spend the evening

with my wife," and so on. He had a good deal to tell her of the day's discoveries, the state of the range, and

the condition of the cattle. To all of this she listened at least with patience. Senor Johnson, like most men who

have long delayed marriage, was selfcentred without knowing it. His interest in his mate had to do with her

"Oh, there's lots to do," she would answer, a trifle listlessly; and this reply always seemed quite to satisfy his

Senor Johnson, with a curiously instant transformation often to be observed among the adventurous, settled

luxuriously into the state of being a married man. Its smallest details gave him distinct and separate

"I plumb likes it all," he said. "I likes havin' interest in some fool geranium plant, and I likes worryin' about

the screen doors and all the rest of the plumb foolishness. It does me good. It feels like stretchin' your legs in

The centre, the compelling influence of this new state of affairs, was undoubtedly Estrella, and yet it is

equally to be doubted whether she stood for more than the suggestion. Senor Johnson conducted his entire

life with reference to his wife. His waking hours were concerned only with the thought of her, his every act

revolved in its orbit controlled by her influence. Nevertheless she, as an individual human being, had little to

do with it. Senor Johnson referred his life to a state of affairs he had himself invented and which he called the

married state, and to a woman whose attitude he had himself determined upon and whom be designated as his

wife. The actual state of affairs whatever it might behe did not see; and the actual woman supplied

merely the material medium necessary to the reality of his idea. Whether Estrella's eyes were interested or

bored, bright or dull, alert or abstracted, contented or afraid, Senor Johnson could not have told you. He

might have replied promptly enoughthat they were happy and loving. That is the way Senor Johnson

The routine of life, then, soon settled. After breakfast the Senor insisted that his wife accompany him on a

short tour of inspection. "A little pasear," he called it, "just to get set for the day." Then his horse was

brought, and he rode away on whatever business called him. Like a true son of the alkali, he took no lunch

with him, nor expected his horse to feed until his return. This was an hour before sunset. The evening passed

When the business hung close to the ranch house was in the bronco busting, the rebranding of bought cattle,

and the likehe was able to share his wife's day. Estrella conducted herself dreamily, with a slow smile for

him when his actual presence insisted on her attention. She seemed much given to staring out over the desert.

Senor Johnson, appreciatively, thought he could understand this. Again, she gave much leisure to rocking

back and forth on the low, wide veranda, her hands idle, her eyes vacant, her lips dumb. Susie O'Toole had

One thing alone besides the deserts on which she never seemed tired of looking, fascinated her. Whenever a

beef was killed for the uses of the ranch, she commanded strips of the green skin. Then, like a child, she

bound them and sewed them and nailed them to substances particularly susceptible to their constricting

power. She choked the necks of green gourds, she indented the tender bark of cottonwood shoots, she

expended an apparently exhaustless ingenuity on the fabrication of mechanical devices whose principle

answered to the pulling of the drying rawhide. And always along the adobe fence could be seen a long row of

potatoes bound in skin, some of them fresh and smooth and round; some sweating in the agony of squeezing;

some wrinkled and dry and little, the last drops of life tortured out of them. Senor Johnson laughed

goodhumouredly at these toys, puzzled to explain their fascination for his wife.

"They're sure an amusing enough contraption honey," said he, "but what makes you stand out there in the hot

"I don't know," said Estrella, helplessly, turning her slow, vacant gaze on him. Suddenly she shivered in a

After they had been married about a month Senor Johnson found it necessary to drive into Willets.

The trip decided, her entire attitude changed. The vacancy of her gaze lifted; her movements quickened; she

left off staring at the desert, and her rawhide toys were neglected. Before starting, Senor Johnson gave her a

check book. He explained that there were no banks in Willets, but that Goodrich, the storekeeper, would

"Take care"she poised before him with the check book extended "I may drawI might draw fifty

"Not out of Goodrich," he grinned; "you'd bust the game. But hold him up for the limit, anyway."

He chuckled aloud, pleased at the rare, birdlike coquetry of the woman. They drove to Willets. It took them

two days to go and two days to return. Estrella went through the town in a cyclone burst of enthusiasm, saw

everything, bought everything, exhausted everything in two hours. Willets was not a large place. On her

return to the ranch she sat down at once in the rockingchair on the veranda. Her hands fell into her lap. She

Senor Johnson stole up behind her, clumsy as a playful bear. His eyes followed the direction of hers to where

a cloud shadow lay across the slope, heavy, palpable, untransparent, like a blotch of ink.

"I'll put it in my desk," said he. "It's in the lefthand cubbyhole," he called from inside.

He stood in the doorway, looking fondly at her unconscious shoulders and the pose of her blonde head

"That's the sort of a woman, after all," said Senor Johnson. "No blame fuss about her."

This, as you well may gather, was in the summer routine. Now the time of the great fall roundup drew near.

All through Cochise County were short mountain ranges set down, apparently at random, like a child's

blocks. In and out between them flowed the broad, plainlike valleys. On the valleys were the various ranges,

great or small, controlled by the different individuals of the Cattlemen's Association. During the year an

unimportant, but certain, shifting of stock took place. A few cattle of Senor Johnson's Lazy Y eluded the

vigilance of his riders to drift over through the Grant Pass and into the ranges of his neighbour; equally, many

of the neighbour's steers watered daily at Senor Johnson's troughs. It was a matter of courtesy to permit this,

but one of the reasons for the fall roundup was a redistribution to the proper ranges. Each cattleowner sent

an outfit to the scene of labour. The combined outfits moved slowly from one valley to another, cutting out

the strays, branding the late calves, collecting for the owner of that particular range all his stock, that he

might select his marketable beef. In turn each cattleman was host to his neighbours and their men.

This year it had been decided to begin the circle of the roundup at the C 0 Bar, near the banks of the San

Pedro. Thence it would work eastward, wandering slowly in north and south deviation, to include all the

The Lazy Y crew was to consist of four men, thirty riding horses, a "chuck wagon," and cook. These, helping

others, and receiving help in turn, would suffice, for in the roundup labour was pooled to a common end.

For a week the punchers, in their daily rides, gathered in the range ponies. Senor Johnson owned fifty horses

which he maintained at the home ranch for everyday riding, two hundred broken saddle animals, allowed

the freedom of the range, except when special occasion demanded their use, and perhaps half a thousand

quite unbrokenbrood mares, stallions, young horses, broncos, and the like. At this time of year it was his

habit to corral all those saddlewise in order to select horses for the roundups and to replace the ranch

The horses chosen, next the men turned their attention to outfit. Each had, of course, his saddle, spurs, and

"rope." Of the latter the chuck wagon carried many extra. That vehicle, furthermore, transported such articles

as the blankets, the tarpaulins under which to sleep, the running irons for branding, the cooking layout, and

the men's personal effects. All was in readiness to move for the six weeks' circle, when a complication arose.

Jed Parker, while nimbly escaping an irritated steer, twisted the high heel of his boot on the corral fence. He

"It don't amount to nothing, Jed," he pronounced, after manipulation, "but she might make a good

ablebodied injury with a little coaxing. Rest her a week and then you'll be all right."

"I will, of course," replied the Senor promptly. "Didje think we'd send the Chink?"

"I was first cousin to a Yaqui jackass for sendin' young Billy Ellis out. He'll be back in a week. He'd do."

"I hate to have you to go," objected Jed. "There's the missis." He shot a glance sideways at his chief.

"I guess she and I can stand it for a week," scoffed the latter. "Why, we are old married folks by now.

The roundup crew started early the next morning, just about sunup. Senor Johnson rode first, merely to

keep out of the dust. Then followed Torn Rich, jogging along easily in the cowpuncher's "Spanish trot"

whistling soothingly to quiet the horses, giving a lead to the band of saddle animals strung out loosely behind

him. These moved on gracefully and lightly in the manner of the unburdened plains horse, half decided to

follow Tom's guidance, half inclined to break to right or left. Homer and Jim Lester flanked them, also riding

in a slouch of apparent laziness, but every once in a while darting forward like bullets to turn back into the

main herd certain individuals whom the early morning of the unwearied day had inspired to make a dash for

liberty. The rear was brought up by Jerky Jones, the fourth cowpuncher, and the fourmule chuck wagon,

The sun mounted; the desert went silently through its changes. Wind devils raised straight, true columns of

dust six, eight hundred, even a thousand feet into the air. The billows of dust from the horses and men crept

and crawled with them like a living creature. Glorious colour, magnificent distance, astonishing illusion,

Senor Johnson rode ahead, looking at these things. The separation from his wife, brief as it would be, left

room in his soul for the hearthunger which beauty arouses in men. He loved the charm of the desert, yet it

Behind him the punchers relieved the tedium of the march, each after his own manner. In an hour the bunch

of loose horses lost its earlymorning good spirits and settled down to a steady plodding, that needed no

supervision. Tom Rich led them, now, in silence, his time fully occupied in rolling Mexican cigarettes with

one hand. The other three dropped back together and exchanged desultory remarks. Occasionally Jim Lester

sang. It was always the same song of uncounted verses, but Jim had a strange fashion of singing a single

"My Love is a rider And broncos he breaks, But he's given up riding And all for my sake, For he found him a

"He sifted in wearin' one of these hardboiled hats, and carryin' a brogue thick enough to skate on. Says he

wants a job drivin' teamthat he drives a truck plenty back to St. Louis, where he comes from. Goodrich

sets him behind them little pinto cavallos he has. Say! that son of a gun a driver! He couldn't drive nails in a

snow bank." An expressive freehand gesture told all there was to tell of the runaway. "Th' shorthorn landed

headfirst in Goldfish Charlie's horse trough. Charlie fishes him out. 'How the devil, stranger,' says Charlie,

'did you come to fall in here?' 'You blamed fool,' says the shorthorn, just cryin' mad, 'I didn't come to fall in

The alkali dust, swirled back by a little breeze, billowed up and choked him. Behind, the mules coughed, their

coats whitening with the powder. Far ahead in the distance lay the westerly mountains. They looked an hour

away, and yet every man and beast in the outfit knew that hour after hour they were doomed, by the

enchantment of the land, to plod ahead without apparently getting an inch nearer. The only salvation was to

But Senor Johnson, today, found himself unable to do this. In spite of his best efforts he caught himself

straining toward the distant goal, becoming impatient, trying to measure progress by landmarksin short

acting like a tenderfoot on the desert, who wears himself down and dies, not from the hardship, but from the

nervous strain which he does not know how to avoid. Senor Johnson knew this as well as you and I. He

cursed himself vigorously, and began with great resolution to think of something else.

He was aroused from this by Tom Rich, riding alongside. "Somebody coming, Senor," said he.

Senor Johnson raised his eyes to the approaching cloud of dust. Silently the two watched it until it resolved

into a rider loping easily along. In fifteen minutes he drew rein, his pony dropped immediately from a gallop

to immobility, he swung into a graceful atease attitude across his saddle, grinned amiably, and began to roll

"Tommy," proffered Billy Ellis dreamily, "when you go to Tucson next you watch out until you sees a little,

squinteyed Britisher. Take a look at him. Then come away. He says he don't know nothin' about poker.

But here Senor Johnson broke in: "Billy, you're just in time. Jed has hurt his foot and can't get on for a week

"So long, Senor." They moved. The erratic Arizona breezes twisted the dust of their going. Senor Johnson

watched them dwindle. With them seemed to go the joy in the old life. No longer did the long trail possess

The dust eddied aside. Plainly could be seen the swaying wagon, the looseriding cowboys, the gleaming,

naked backs of the herd. Then the veil closed over them again. But down the wind, faintly, in snatches, came

Senor Buck Johnson loped quickly back toward the home ranch, his heart glad at this fortunate solution of his

annoyance. The home ranch lay in plain sight not ten miles away. As Senor Johnson idly watched it

shimmering in the heat, a tiny figure detached itself from the mass and launched itself in his direction.

The figure drew steadily nearer. In half an hour it had approached near enough to be recognised.

"Why, it's Jed!" cried the Senor, and spurred his horse. "What do you mean, riding out with that foot?" he

"Foot, hell!" gasped Parker, whirling his horse alongside. "Your wife's run away with Brent Palmer."

For fully ten seconds not the faintest indication proved that the husband had heard, except that he lifted his

"Know, hell! It's been going on for a month. Sang saw them drive off. They took the buckboard. He heard

'em planning it. He was too scairt to tell till they'd gone. I just found it out. They've been gone two hours.

Must be going to make the Limited." Parker fidgeted, impatient to be off. "You're wasting time," he snapped

Suddenly Johnson's face flamed. He reached from his saddle to clutch Jed's shoulder, nearly pulling the

Parker made no effort to extricate himself from the painful grasp. His cool eyes met the blazing eyes of his

Johnson's head snapped back to the front with a groan. The pony snorted as the steel bit his flanks, leaped

forward, and with head outstretched, nostrils wide, the wicked white of the bronco flickering in the corner of

his eye, struck the bee line for the home ranch. Jed followed as fast as he was able.

On his arrival he found his chief raging about the house like a wild beast. Sang trembled from a quick and

stormy interrogatory in the kitchen. Chairs had been upset and let lie. Estrella's belongings had been tumbled

over. Senor Johnson there found only too sure proof, in the various lacks, of a premeditated and permanent

flight. Still he hoped; and as long as he hoped, he doubted, and the demons of doubt tore him to a frenzy. Jed

stood near the door, his arms folded, his weight shifted to his sound foot, waiting and wondering what the

Finally, Senor Johnson, struck with a new idea, ran to his desk to rummage in a pigeonhole. But he found no

need to do so, for lying on the desk was what he soughtthe check book from which Estrella was to draw on

Goodrich for the money she might need. He fairly snatched it open. Two of the checks had been torn out, stub

and all. And then his eye caught a crumpled bit of blue paper under the edge of the desk.

He smoothed it out. The check was made out to bearer and signed Estrella Johnson. It called for fifteen

thousand dollars. Across the middle was a great ink blot, reason for its rejection.

"I reckon you're right, Jed," he cried in his natural voice. "she's gone with him. She's got all her traps with

her, and she's drawn on Goodrich for fifteen thousand. And SHE never thought of going just this time of

month when the miners are in with their dust, and Goodrich would be sure to have that much. That's friend

"I couldn't say anything, Buck," said Parker anxiously. "A man's never sure enough about them things till

He puffed for a moment, then rose, stretching his legs. In a moment he returned from the other room, the old

shiny Colt's fortyfive strapped loosely on his hip. Jed looked him in the face with some anxiety. The

foreman was not deceived by the man's easy manner; in fact, he knew it to be symptomatic of one of the

"She left this for you," said he, proffering an envelope. "Them kind always writes."

"Sure," agreed Senor Johnson, stuffing the letter carelessly into his side pocket. He half drew the Colt's from

its holster and slipped it back again. "Makes you feel plumb like a man to have one of these things rubbin'

against you again," he observed irrelevantly. Then he went out, leaving the foreman leaning, chair tilted,

Although he had left the room so suddenly, Senor Johnson did not at once open the gate of the adobe wall.

His demeanour was gay, for he was a Westerner, but his heart was black. Hardly did he see beyond the

The pony, warmed up by its little run, pawed the ground, impatient to be off. It was a fine animal,

cleanbuilt, deepchested, one of the mustang stock descended from the Arabs brought over by Pizarro. Sang

watched fearfully from the slant of the kitchen window. Jed Parker, even, listened for the beat of the horse's

But Senor Johnson stood stockstill, his brain absolutely numb and empty. His hand brushed against

something which fell, to the ground. He brought his dull gaze to bear on it. The object proved to be a black,

wrinkled spheroid, baked hard as iron in the sunshine of Estrella's toys, a potato squeezed to dryness by the

constricting power of the rawhide. In a row along the fence were others. To Senor Johnson it seemed that thus

But the slight movement of the falling object roused him. He swung open the gate. The pony bowed his head

delightedly. He was not tired, but his reins depended straight to the ground, and it was a point of honour with

him to stand. At the saddle born, in its sling, hung the riata, the "rope" without which no cowman ever stirs

abroad, but which Senor Johnson had rarely used of late. Senor Johnson threw the reins over, seized the

pony's mane in his left hand, held the pommel with his right, and so swung easily aboard, the pony's jump

Truth to tell, Senor Johnson had very little idea of what he was going to do. His action was entirely

instinctive. The wheel tracks held to the southwest so he held to the southwest, too.

The pony hit his stride. The miles slipped by. After seven of them the animal slowed to a walk. Senor

Johnson allowed him to get his wind, then spurred him on again. He did not even take the ordinary

About suppertime he came to the first ranch house. There he took a bite to eat and exchanged his horse for

"Yes, about three o'clock. Brent Palmer driving her. Bound for Willets to visit the preacher's wife, she said.

Ought to catch up at the Circle I. That's where they'd all spend the night, of course. So long."

Senor Johnson knew now the couple would follow the straight road. They would fear no pursuit. He himself

was supposed not to return for a week, and the story of visiting the minister's wife was not only plausible, it

was natural. Jed had upset calculations, because Jed was shrewd, and had eyes in his head. Buck Johnson's

The night was very still and very dark, the stars very bright in their candlelike glow. The man, loping

steadily on through the darkness, recalled that other night, equally still, equally dark, equally starry, when he

had driven out from his accustomed life into the unknown with a woman by his side, the sight of whom

The pony was a good one, well equal to twice the distance he would be called upon to cover this night. Senor

Johnson managed him well. By long experience and a natural instinct he knew just how hard to push his

mount, just how to keep inside the point where too rapid exhaustion of vitality begins.

Toward the hour of sunrise he drew rein to look about him. The desert, till now wrapped in the thousand little

noises that make night silence, drew breath in preparation for the awe of the daily wonder. It lay across the

world heavy as a sea of lead, and as lifeless; deeply unconscious, like an exhausted sleeper. The sky bent

above, the stars paling. Far away the mountains seemed to wait. And then, imperceptibly, those in the east

became blacker and sharper, while those in the west became faintly lucent and lost the distinctness of their

outline. The change was nothing, yet everything. And suddenly a desert bird sprang into the air and began to

Senor Johnson caught the wonder of it. The wonder of it seemed to him wasted, useless, cruel in its effect. He

The desert became grey with the first light before the glory. In the illusory revealment of it Senor Johnson's

sharp frontiersman's eyes made out an object moving away from him in the middle distance. In a moment the

object rose for a second against the sky line, then disappeared. He knew it to be the buckboard, and that the

Immediately life surged through him like an electric shock. He unfastened the riata from its sling, shook loose

the noose, and moved forward in the direction in which he had last seen the buckboard.

At the top of the steep little bank he stopped behind the mesquite, straining his eyes; luck had been good to

him. The buckboard had pulled up, and Brent Palmer was at the moment beginning a little fire, evidently to

Senor Johnson struck spurs to his horse and half slid, half fell, clattering, down the steep clay bank almost on

Estrella screamed. Brent Palmer jerked out an oath, and reached for his gun. The loop of the riata fell wide

The broncobuster, swept from his feet by the pony's rapid turn, nevertheless struggled desperately to wrench

himself loose. Button, intelligent at all rope work, walked steadily backward, step by step, taking up the

slack, keeping the rope tight as he had done hundreds of times before when a steer had struggled as this man

was struggling now. His master leaped from the saddle and ran forward. Button continued to walk slowly

Brent Palmer fought savagely, even then. He kicked, he rolled over and over, he wrenched violently at his

pinioned arms, he twisted his powerful young body from Senor Johnson's grasp again and again. But it was

no use. In less than a minute he was bound hard and fast. Button promptly slackened the rope. The dust

settled. The noise of the combat died. Again could be heard the single desert bird singing against the dawn.

Senor Johnson quietly approached Estrella. The girl had, during the struggle, gone through an aimless but

frantic exhibition of terror. Now she shrank back, her eyes staring wildly, her hands behind her, ready to flop

And then at once, as though the personal contact of the touch had broken through the last crumb of numbness

with which shock had overlaid Buck Johnson's passions, the insanity of his rage broke out. He twisted her

violently on her face, knelt on her back, and, with the short piece of hard rope the cowboy always carries to

"hogtie" cattle, he lashed her wrists together. Then he arose panting, his square black beard rising and

Estrella had screamed again and again until her face had been fairly ground into the alkali. There she had

choked and strangled and gasped and sobbed, her mind nearly unhinged with terror. She kept appealing to

him in a hoarse voice, but could get no reply, no indication that he had even heard. This terrified her still

more. Brent Palmer cursed steadily and accurately, but the man did not seem to hear him either.

The tempest bad broken in Buck Johnson's soul. When he had touched Estrella he had, for the first time,

realised what he had lost. It was not the womanher he despised. But the dreams! All at once he knew what

they had been to himhe understood how completely the very substance of his life had changed in response

to their slow soulaction. The new world had been blastedthe old no longer existed to which to return.

Buck Johnson stared at this catastrophe until his sight blurred. Why, it was atrocious! He had done nothing to

deserve it! Why had they not left him peaceful in his own life of cattle and the trail? He had been happy. His

And then, finally, in the understanding of how he had been tricked of his life, his happiness, his right to

wellbeing, the whole force of the man's anger flared. Brent Palmer lay there cursing him artistically. That

Estrella, too, lay huddled, helpless and defenseless, at his feet. She had done it. He would get even. How?

He had spoken no word. He spoke none now, either in answer to Estrella's appeals, becoming piteous in their

craving for relief from suspense, or in response to Brent Palmer's steady stream of insults and vituperations.

Such things were far below. The bitterness and anger and desolation were squeezing his heart. He

remembered the silly little row of potatoes sewn in the green hide lying along the top of the adobe fence,

some fresh and round, some dripping as the rawhide contracted, some black and withered and very small. A

First of all he unhitched the horses from the buckboard and turned them loose. Then, since he was early

trained in Indian warfare, he dragged Palmer to the wagon wheel, and tied him so closely to it that he could

not roll over. For, though the broncobuster was already so fettered that his only possible movement was of

the jackknife variety, nevertheless he might be able to hitch himself along the ground to a sharp stone, there

to saw through the rope about his wrists. Estrella, her husband held in contempt. He merely supplemented her

Leisurely he mounted Button and turned up the wagon trail, leaving the two. Estrella had exhausted herself.

She was capable of nothing more in the way of emotion. Her eyes tight closed, she inhaled in deep,

trembling, longdrawn breaths, and exhaled with the name of her Maker. Brent Palmer, on the contrary, was

by no means subdued. He had expected to be shot in cold blood. Now he did not know what to anticipate. His

black, level brows drawn straight in defiance, he threw his curses after Johnson's retreating figure.

The latter, however, paid no attention. He had his purposes. Once at the top of the arroyo he took a careful

survey of the landscape, now rich with dawn. Each excrescence on the plain his halfsquinted eyes noticed,

and with instant skill relegated to its proper category of soapweed, mesquite, cactus. At length he swung

Button in an easy lope toward what looked to be a bunch of soapweed in the middle distance.

But in a moment the cattle could be seen plainly. Button pricked up his ears. He knew cattle. Now he

proceeded tentatively, lifting high his little hoofs to avoid the halfseen inequalities of the ground and the

ground's growths, wondering whether he were to be called on to rope or to drive. When the rider had

approached to within a hundred feet, the cattle started. Immediately Button understood that he was to pursue.

No rope swung above his head, so he sheered off and ran as fast as he could to cut ahead of the bunch. But

his rider with knee and rein forced him in. After a moment, to his astonishment, he found himself running

The Colt's fortyfive barked once, and then again. The steer staggered, fell to his knees, recovered, and

finally stopped, the blood streaming from his nostrils. In a moment he fell heavily on his sidedead.

Senor Johnson at once dismounted and began methodically to skin the animal. This was not easy for he had

no way of suspending the carcass nor of rolling it from side to side. However, he was practised at it and did a

neat job. Two or three times he even caught himself taking extra pains that the thin flesh strips should not

After the hide had been removed he cut from the edge, around and around, a long, narrow strip. With this he

bound the whole into a compact bundle, strapped it on behind his saddle, and remounted. He returned to the

Estrella still lay with her eyes closed. Brent Palmer looked up keenly. The broncobuster saw the green hide.

Roughly Johnson loosed his enemy from the wheel and dragged him to the woman. He passed the free end of

the riata about them both, tying them close together. The girl continued to moan, out of her wits with terror.

"What are you going to do now, you devil?" demanded Palmer, but received no reply.

Buck Johnson spread out the rawhide. Putting forth his huge strength, he carried to it the pair, bound together

like a bale of goods, and laid them on its cool surface. He threw across them the edges, and then deliberately

began to wind around and around the huge and unwieldy rawhide package the strip he had cut from the edge

Nor was this altogether easy. At last Brent Palmer understood. He writhed in the struggle of desperation,

foaming blasphemies. The uncouth bundle rolled here and there. But inexorably the other, from the advantage

And then, all at once, from vituperation the broncobuster fell to pleading, not for life, but for death.

"For God's sake, shoot me!" he cried from within the smothering folds of the rawhide. "If you ever had a

heart in you, shoot me! Don't leave me here to be crushed in this vise. You wouldn't do that to a yellow dog.

An Injin wouldn't do that, Buck. It's a joke, isn't it? Don't go away and leave me, Buck. I've done you dirt.

Cut my heart out, if you want to; I won't say a word, but don't leave me here for the sun"

His voice was drowned in a piercing scream, as Estrella came to herself and understood. Always the rawhide

had possessed for her an occult fascination and repulsion. She had never been able to touch it without a

shudder, and yet she had always been drawn to experiment with it. The terror of her doom had now added to

it for her all the vague and premonitory terrors which heretofore she had not understood.

The richness of the dawn had flowed to the west. Day was at hand. Breezes had begun to play across the

desert; the wind devils to raise their straight columns. A first long shaft of sunlight shot through a pass in the

Chiricahuas, trembled in the dustmoted air, and laid its warmth on the rawhide. Senor Johnson roused

Button was a trusty of Senor Johnson's private animals. He was never known to leave his master in the lurch,

and so was habitually allowed certain privileges. Now, instead of remaining exactly on the spot where he was

"tied to the ground," he had wandered out of the dry arroyo bed to the upper level of the plains, where he

knew certain bunch grasses might be found. Buck Johnson climbed the steep wooded bank in search of him.

The pony stood not ten feet distant. At his master's abrupt appearance he merely raised his head, a wisp of

grass in the corner of his mouth, without attempting to move away. Buck Johnson walked confidently to him,

fumbling in his side pocket for the piece of sugar with which he habitually soothed Button's sophisticated

"Dear Buck," it read, "I am going away. I tried to be good, but I can't. It's too lonesome for me. I'm afraid of

the horses and the cattle and the men and the desert. I hate it all. I tried to make you see how I felt about it,

but you couldn't seem to see. I know you'll never forgive me, but I'd go crazy here. I'm almost crazy now. I

suppose you think I'm a bad woman, but I am not. You won't believe that. Its' true though. The desert would

make anyone bad. I don't see how you stand it. You've been good to me, and I've really tried, but it's no use.

The country is awful. I never ought to have come. I'm sorry you are going to think me a bad woman, for I like

you and admire you, but nothing, NOTHING could make me stay here any longer." She signed herself simply

Buck Johnson stood staring at the paper for a much longer time than was necessary merely to absorb the

meaning of the words. His senses, sharpened by the stress of the last sixteen hours, were trying mightily to

cut to the mystery of a change going on within himself. The phrases of the letter were bald enough, yet they

conveyed something vital to his inner being. He could not understand what it was.

Before him lay the desert, but a desert suddenly and miraculously changed, a desert he had never seen before.

Mile after mile it swept away before him, hot, dry, suffocating, lifeless. The sparse vegetation was grey with

the alkali dust. The heat hung choking in the air like a curtain. Lizards sprawled in the sun, repulsive. A

rattlesnake dragged its loathsome length from under a mesquite. The dried carcass of a steer, whose

parchment skin drew tight across its bones, rattled in the breeze. Here and there rock ridges showed with the

obscenity of so many skeletons, exposing to the hard, cruel sky the earth's nakedness. Thirst, delirium, death,

The desert showed her teeth and lay in wait like a fierce beast. The little soul of man shrank in terror before

Buck Johnson stared, recalling the phrases of the letter, recalling the words of his foreman, Jed Parker. "It's

too lonesome for me," "I'm afraid," "I hate it all," "I'd go crazy here," "The desert would make anyone bad,"

"The country is awful." And the musing voice of the old cattleman, "I wonder if she'll like the country!" They

reiterated themselves over and over; and always as refrain his own confident reply, "Like the country? Sure!

And then he recalled the summer just passing, and the woman who had made no fuss. Chance remarks of hers

came back to him, remarks whose meaning he had not at the time grasped, but which now he saw were

desperate appeals to his understanding. He had known his desert. He had never known hers.

With an exclamation Buck Johnson turned abruptly back to the arroyo. Button followed him, mildly curious,

Down the miniature cliff the man slid, confidently, without hesitation, sure of himself. His shoulders held

squarely, his step elastic, his eye bright, he walked to the fearful, shapeless bundle now lying motionless on

Brent Palmer had fallen into a grim silence, but Estrella still moaned. The cattleman drew his knife and

ripped loose the bonds. Immediately the flaps of the wet rawhide fell apart, exposing to the new daylight the

Her eyes came open with a snap, and stared into his, wild with the surprise of his return.

He stood for a moment in deep thought, then began methodically, without haste, to cut loose the thongs that

When the man and the woman were quite freed, he stood for a moment, the knife in his hand, looking down

on them. Then he swung himself into the saddle and rode away, straight down the narrow arroyo, out beyond

its lower widening, into the vast plains the hither side of the Chiricahuas. The alkali dust was snatched by the

wind from beneath his horse's feet. Smaller and smaller he dwindled, rising and falling, rising and falling in

the monotonous cowpony's lope. The heat shimmer veiled him for a moment, but he reappeared. A mirage

concealed him, but he emerged on the other side of it. Then suddenly he was gone. The desert had swallowed