The Sheriff and the Cattlemen.

THE MISSING POCKET-BOOK
OR
TOM MASON’S LUCK

BY
HARRY CASTLEMON

AUTHOR OF “THE GUNBOAT SERIES,” “ROCKY MOUNTAIN
SERIES,” “WAR SERIES,” ETC.

PHILADELPHIA
HENRY T. COATES & CO.

Copyright, 1895,
BY
PORTER & COATES.

CONTENTS.

THE MISSING POCKET-BOOK;
OR,
TOM MASON’S LUCK.

CHAPTER I.
RIGHT IN THE MIDST OF IT.

CATTLEMEN AND FARMERS READY FOR WAR.

Fort Worth, August 5, 18—. One hundred and seventy-five thousand head of cattle are being slowly drifted and driven from the drought-parched sections of Northwestern Texas into Jacks County, along the waters of the West Fork of Trinity. The herders who accompany them demand that they must have grass and water, or blood. The farmers, who will be greatly damaged by the passage of these immense herds, are arming and say the cattle shall not come in—that they must be driven back at all hazards. To permit them to pass means fences destroyed, crops ruined, and the meagre supply of water exhausted; to turn them back means death to the cattle and financial disaster to the men who own them. To-day the news was carried from house to house, and the farmers are turning out to a man, resolved to rendezvous on Bear Creek and forbid the driving of the cattle through their lands. Large squads have gone to the front, and they are well-armed and desperate. Sheriff Reins will be on hand to-morrow, and so will a company of militia under command of Captain Fuller. Several conflicts, involving the loss of six or seven lives, have already taken place between the cattlemen and the farmers, the particulars of which have not yet found publicity.

Of all the boys into whose hands this story may fall, and who make it a point to read the daily papers, I venture to say that not one in a hundred will remember that he ever saw the above despatch, which was flashed over the wires one bright summer morning a few years ago; but if those boys had been on the ground as I was, and witnessed the thrilling and affecting scenes that transpired before and after that despatch was written, they would have seen some things that time could never efface from their memories.

If ever I saw suffering cattle or determined, almost desperate, men, who were fairly spoiling for a fight, it was on that sweltering August day when a big brown-whiskered man, a wealthy farmer of Jacks County, accompanied by the sheriff and two deputies, rode up to the wagon and demanded to see “the boss.” Around the wagon were gathered a weary and dusty party of men and boys, who had come there to slake their thirst, and John Chisholm, the man to whose enterprise and push the great Texas cattle trade owed its existence, was just raising a cup of the precious fluid to his lips. I say “precious” because our supply was limited, and the nearest stream far away.

“It tastes as though it had been boiled for a week,” said he, after he had moistened his parched mouth, “but every drop of it is worth its weight in gold. Touch it lightly, boys, for there is no telling when we shall be able to fill the cask again. Have any of the scouts come in yet? If we don’t find a pool pretty soon we shall all be ruined. Just see there!” he added, waving his hand toward the back trail. “A blind man could easily follow our route, for every rod of it is marked with dead beeves.”

It would have taken something besides a “pool” of water to quench the thirst of that multitude of cattle, which were drifting along a mile or so in advance of the wagon, almost concealed by the suffocating cloud of dust that hung over them and pointed out their line of travel. Just how many of them there were in the herd the most experienced cattleman could not guess, for the flanks of the drove as well as its leading members were far out of sight. There were more than a dozen outfits mixed up together, no attempt having been made to keep them apart; nor was there any effort made to control their movements beyond keeping them headed toward the West Fork of Trinity, the nearest point at which water could be obtained. The suffering beasts complained piteously as they plodded along, and now and then deep mutterings of challenge and defiance, followed by a commotion somewhere in the herd, would indicate the spot where perhaps a dozen of the half maddened animals had closed in deadly combat. It was little wonder that the sixty bronzed and weather-beaten men who accompanied them were in fighting humor, and ready to resist to the death any interference with their efforts to find water or grass. They were almost consumed with thirst themselves. Every drop of water they drank was brought along in the wagon, and there was so little of it that no one thought of taking more than a swallow at a time. Scouts had been sent out early in the morning with instructions to search everywhere for a water-course, and it was as Mr. Chisholm enquired about them, and handed back the cup he had drained, that the sheriff rode up and asked to see “the boss.”

“’Pears to me as if this outfit was bossing itself,” replied Mr. Chisholm, facing about in his saddle and looking sharply at the newcomers. “You can see for yourself, without looking, that all we can do is to keep the critters pointed toward the West Fork. But you don’t belong on our side of the house. Where might you hail from?”

“I am sheriff of this county, and came out to tell you that you must not trespass on the grounds of our farmers,” answered the officer.

“Well, then, what do you come to us for?” enquired Mr. Chisholm, while the men around him scowled savagely and played with the locks of their rifles. “Go and serve your warning on the critters. Can’t you see that some of them are miles ahead of us? How are we going to turn them back when our horses are nigh about as ready to drop as the cattle are? I tell you it can’t be done!”

“Don’t you know it means ruin to us farmers if we allow those famishing cattle to get into our fields?” demanded the brown-whiskered man, who seemed quite as ready and willing to fight as the cattlemen were. “They will break down our fences and eat up the very crops on which our lives depend. Besides, there are no more grass and water in the country than we want ourselves.”

“I’m powerful sorry to hear you say that, but I don’t see what we are going to do about it,” said Mr. Chisholm. “We’ve got to go somewhere now that we have started.”

The sheriff opened his lips to speak, but the brown-whiskered man was too quick for him.

“You don’t know what you are going to do about it, don’t you?” he said, with a savage emphasis. “Well, I will tell you. When you get to the top of that swell yonder you will see, a couple of miles off, a long line of willows.”

“Now, if that isn’t the best piece of news I have heard for a week I wouldn’t say so!” exclaimed the cattleman. “Where there’s timber there is water, of course. I thought the critters were a-travelling along a trifle pearter than they were a while back. Sam, you drive on ahead with the wagon and fill up the cask, and the rest of us will kinder scatter out on the flanks and head the critters toward the willows our friend speaks of.”

“Will you let me get through with what I have to say?” shouted the farmer, his face growing white with anger. “You go near those willows if you dare! There are more than two hundred men hidden among them, and if our pickets can’t turn your cattle back they’ll shoot them!”

“Will, eh?” exclaimed Mr. Chisholm, his face wearing a good-natured smile, that was very aggravating to the brown-whiskered farmer. “I hope not, for if you shoot our stock we’ll have to shoot you to pay for it. Look a-here,” he added, turning his horse about and riding up close to the man he was addressing, “I tell you once for all, stranger——”

“Hold! I command the peace!” cried the sheriff, seeing that the men and boys around the wagon were moving up to support their leader. “Keep back, all of you!”

“The peace hasn’t been broken yet,” replied Mr. Chisholm, “and I assure you that I and my friends have no intention of breaking it; but our watchword is, ‘Grass and water, or blood!’ and it is for you to decide which it shall be. We are not the men to stand by with our hands in our pockets and see our stock perish for want of something to eat and drink, and you misjudge us if that is the kind of fellows you took us for. You farmers were very kind to yourselves when you ran your fences along every water-course in the State, so’t we cattlemen could not get to it. Water’s free and we want our share of it.”

“But our land has been paid for, and you have no right to come upon it after we have told you to keep off,” said the farmer.

“Some of you have paid for the land you raise crops on and some are squatters the same as we cattlemen are,” answered Mr. Chisholm, becoming earnest, but still fighting to keep down his rising anger. “There are miles and miles of these streams been fenced in and shut off from us stock-raisers without any warrant of law, and now we are going to walk over some of them same fences.”

“If you attempt it we shall shoot you down like dogs!” said the farmer fiercely, and as he spoke he lifted his rifle an inch or two from the horn of his saddle, as if he had half a mind to begin the shooting then and there.

“Easy, easy, Mr. Walker,” interposed the sheriff, laying his hand upon the angry man’s arm. “We’ve got the right on our side and the whole power of the State behind us, and there’s no need that you should get yourself into trouble by taking matters into your own hands. I warn you to turn back,” he continued, addressing himself to Mr. Chisholm. “I am an officer of the law, and if you do not pay some attention to what I say I shall be obliged to arrest you.”

The cattleman laughed, not loudly, but heartily and silently.

“I reckon you’re a new man who has just been put into office,” said he, as soon as he could speak. “If you were an old hand at the business you would know that it would take pretty considerable of a posse to arrest any man in this outfit. I wouldn’t try it if I were sheriff.”

“Well, you have heard my warning,” said Mr. Walker, “and the blame for whatever happens will be on your own head. Nearly all the farmers in the county have assembled to resist your advance, and they sent me out here to tell you that you have come far enough. Now, will you turn back or not?”

“I aint got much patience with a man who has two good eyes in his head to keep on asking such a question as that. Of course we’ll not turn back! We can’t!”

“Then we shall drive you back,” said Mr. Walker. “That’s all there is about it. Because the drought has ruined your business you need not think we are going to let you ruin ours.”

The farmer rode away, shaking his head and muttering to himself, and paying no sort of attention to the sheriff, who spurred to his side and tried to reason with him. After a while the sheriff came back to expostulate with the leader of the cattlemen; but the latter waved him aside.

“I don’t blame you, Mr. Officer,” said he. “You have done nothing but duty in warning us not to trespass on them farmers’ grounds, but you see how we are fixed, don’t you? We can’t stop where we are. All the cowboys in Texas could not turn the critters back now that they have got a sniff of the water that is flashing along sparkling and cold behind them willows, and what is there left for us but to go on? All we ask of you and your posse is to keep out of the way. We cattlemen know how to take care of ourselves.”

“But don’t you see that I can’t keep out of your way?” demanded the sheriff. “As an officer it is my duty to oppose your further progress!”

“Then it will be my duty to ride over you rough-shod,” said the cattleman cheerfully. “I don’t want to do that, for you seem to be a good sort, even if you are an officer. If you will be governed by the advice of one who knows more about this country and the men who live in it than you are ever likely to learn, you will ride down to the willows and tell them farmers to fall back and give our perishing stock a chance at the water. If they will listen to you there will be no trouble. Me and my friends will camp nigh the stream to-night, hold a council of war in the morning, and like as not we’ll come to some sort of an understanding. But I can’t spend any more time with you. If you or the farmers are going to force a fight upon us, we must get ready for it.”

So saying Mr. Chisholm waved his hand to the officer and rode away, leaving us three boys from the North, who had ridden up close to hear this consultation and the threats it contained, in a state of dreadful uncertainty. We had come from our homes, somewhere near Denver, which at that time was little more than a sprinkling of miner cabins, with no such thoughts as this in our minds, and here we were right in the midst of it—civil war! We had come down there to invest a few hundred dollars in cattle. We thought we could make something by it. By keeping far to the eastward, along the banks of the Red River, we had got beyond reach of the Comanche and Kiowas and other Indians who felt inclined to steal everything we had, and then by turning rapidly to the west had found ourselves right among the cattlemen almost before we knew it.

You remember that there were three of us boys—Elam Storm, now no longer moody and reticent, but hail fellow well met with everybody, for we had found the nugget of which he had been in search for so many years; Tom Mason, who went by the name of “Lucky Tom”; and myself, Carlos Burton, upon whom devolves the duty of writing this story. We had seen some adventures during our long ride, some that I would gladly like a chance to relate; but they differed so widely from the scenes we passed through among those cattlemen that I am glad to pass them by to tell this story of “Tom Mason’s luck.” Tom was a lucky fellow, that’s a fact, and for a runaway boy he had a good deal of pluck. I don’t know that he thought of making any money at the time he was working with us, but at the same time he took the right way to get it. You know he was trying to scrape together five thousand dollars, the amount he stole from his uncle—a large sum for a boy of his age to make; but he had that amount and more too when he went home. I will tell all about it when I get to it.

At length, when we had been so long on our journey that Elam and Tom declared that I had missed my way, we ran across a fence, and that night we struck the farmer’s house. I noticed that there was corn on the other side of the fence, and that instead of being healthy and green and thrifty-looking, it was stunted and its leaves were beginning to turn yellow. It looked as though it was all ready to gather, only there was not the sign of an ear on any of the stalks that we could see. I found out the reason for this when we put up at the farmer’s house that night,—the first house we had stayed in since leaving Uncle Ezra’s,—when he told us that there had not been a drop of rain in that part of Texas for sixteen months. Water was beginning to get scarce, and the worst of it was, the grass on the school-lands, miles away where all these cattle were pastured, was burning up, and they expected every day to find an army of famishing cattle coming down upon them.

“And that’s something we can’t stand,” said the farmer. “We have only a little grass and water for our own use, and those cattle will use up all we have got. More than that, they will break down our fences and ruin our crops so that we shan’t have a thing to go on. That’s one thing we have to contend with in Texas—long droughts.”

That was one thing I hadn’t thought of, and when we started the next day I took particular notice of the grass and water and found that they were tolerable scarce, every little mud hole in which there was water being fenced in to keep their stock away from it. I had never been in that part of Texas before, and I found that water was hard to get at, we having to fill our bottles to last us all day; but I supposed it was characteristic of the country. Of course the little stock that the farmers had was thrifty and fat, as well they might be, for they had water enough, only not as much as they wanted; but the farther we went into the country the worse grew the situation. We often had to beg for water, and it was the first time I ever did such a thing in my life.

At last we got beyond the range of the farmers, and then we found what suffering for water meant. We were generally able to find a mud hole or two in which water had been, and which was not entirely dry, and by digging down in it would get enough to quench our thirst, and there we would stay until the next morning to enable our horses to gain strength enough to carry us; but there was no grass for them to eat. Everything was dried up. Two nights we spent without water. We had enough in our bottles for ourselves, but our poor horses were obliged to go thirsty. Elam I knew was all right. He would keep on until I gave the word to go back, and if his horse played out, he would shoulder his pack and go ahead on foot, but I looked for a complaint from Tom. It is true he looked pretty glum when his horse came up to him in the morning and said as plainly as he could that he was thirsty, and Tom could count every bone in his body, but never a word of protest did I hear from him. He would get on and ride as if nothing was the matter.

One afternoon we came within sight of a long line of willows which we knew lined a stream, the first we had seen for many a day, and near them was a large herd of cattle ranging about and trying to find enough to eat. A little nearer to us, on a little rise of ground, we saw a horse, his rider having dismounted to give him a chance to browse. He saw us as soon as we did him, and shaded his eyes with his hand and looked at us. Then he picked up his rifle and held it in the hollow of his arm.

“What is he going to do?” said Tom. “Is he going to try to keep us away from that water?”

“We will soon know,” I replied. “I never knew a cowboy to be armed with a rifle before. It proves that there has been somebody here after his water, and he wants to be prepared to meet them at long range.”

It was four miles to where he was, and it took us all of an hour to get up there. It seemed as if our horses couldn’t raise a trot to save their lives. As we made no move to raise our weapons, he finally dropped his to the ground and leaned upon it.

“How-dy!” said I, as soon as we got within speaking distance. That is the term that Western men always use in addressing one another. “I’m almost dead for a drink, and have come here to see if you would give us some.”

“You are alone, I take it?” said the cowboy.

“We are alone,” said I.

“There’s nobody behind you with a big drove of cattle, is there?”

“Nobody at all. We came down here to buy stock, but I don’t believe we want any now.”

“You can have all we’ve got,” said he, with a smile. “We’ll sell ’em to you at a dollar apiece.”

I looked around at the walking skeletons he was willing to dispose of at so meagre a price. They were too far away for me to see much of them, but still I could tell that they were gaunt and scraggy in the extreme. Some of them were lying down flat on their sides, with their heads extended, and when a steer gets that way he is in a bad fix.

“I had no idea that your steers were in such shape,” said I. “Are some of them dead?”

“Oh, no; there’s plenty of life left in them yet. You will find plenty of water on the other side of those willows. You see some cattlemen came up here the other day from the same direction you came from, looking for grass and water, and said they were going to come in at all hazards; that’s what made me pick up my rifle when I saw you.”

“We aint seed no cattlemen down this way,” said Elam. “We aint seed anything but farmers.”

We were too thirsty to waste any more time in talking, and so we rode down on the other side of the willows to find the “plenty of water” the cowboy spoke of. Well, there was plenty of it, such as it was, but it was scattered along the creek in little holes, and had been trampled in by the cattle until it was all roiled up; a filthy place to drink, but boys and horses went at it, and by the time we had got all the water we wanted there wasn’t much left in that hole. We filled our bottles, saw our horses drink all they needed, and then mounted and rode back to where we had left the hospitable cowboy.

“I don’t call that plenty of water,” said Tom, who nevertheless had been a good deal revived by the hearty swig he had taken. “I wish you had some of the water that was overflowing the Mississippi valley when I left it. It was enough to flood this whole country.”

“Well, pilgrim, it is enough for us, situated the way we are now. I have seen the time when that bayou down there was booming full, and you would have to wait for a week before you could cross it. I suppose you would like a roof to shelter you to-night, wouldn’t you?” said the cowboy. “Well, if you will follow the creek up about ten miles, you will find the ranch of Mr. Davenport, my boss. He will give you plenty to eat and a shakedown, but your horses will fare hard for grass.”

“Thank you! We would like something a little different from the bacon and crackers we have been living upon so long,” said I. “Mr. Davenport isn’t so hard up as his cattle?”

“Oh, bless you, he’s got plenty. He got a whole wagon load of things last night.”

Thanking the cowboy again for his kindness in showing us the water, we rode away. The route we followed took us directly through his cattle, and I was not much surprised when I remembered what the cowboy had said about selling them for a dollar apiece. I never saw such poverty-stricken cattle in my life. Even the bulls paid no sort of attention to us, and we told one another that we thought our trip to Texas had not amounted to anything, and that we would have to wait until the next spring before we could take any cattle home with us. While we were talking the matter over, Tom pointed out in the distance the whitewashed walls of Mr. Davenport’s ranch.

CHAPTER II.
MR. DAVENPORT’S SECRET.

The nearer we approached to the ranch the more like a home place it looked to us, the only thing that did not appear natural being the hayracks that were usually piled up for the horses. These were all gone, thus proving that the ranchman had not been able to provide any more for the benefit of his steeds that were to carry him and his cowboys during all sorts of weather. Of course there could be no hay while the grass that was to furnish it was all burned up. As we drew nearer we discovered a man and a boy sitting on the porch. They did not wait for us to speak to them, but the boy got up with his face beaming all over with smiles, while the man, who seemed to be a sort of invalid, kept his chair.

“Strangers, you’re welcome to Hardscrabble,” said he. “Alight and hitch. Your horses won’t go very far away, and so you can turn them loose.”

“Thank you,” said I. I was expected to do all the talking. “Do we address Mr. Davenport?”

“That is my name,” returned the invalid. “And I see you are boys, too. Bob will be glad of that. Come up here.”

It did not take us very long to remove our saddles and bridles from our horses and carry them up on the porch. Then we shook hands with Mr. Davenport and his son Bob, and took the chairs that were promptly brought out to us.

“You are very young men to be travelling around this way,” said the invalid. “I shouldn’t think that your parents would permit it.”

“Well, I don’t know that we have any parents to say what we shall do. We are alone in the world, with the exception of Tom here, who has an uncle in Mississippi. We have come a thousand miles to buy some cattle; but I don’t think, from what I have seen of your cattle, that we shall want any.”

“Oh, this drought is simply awful,” said the invalid, rising up in his chair. “We haven’t had a drop of rain for sixteen months, and if it keeps on much longer we shall all die in the poor-house. The route you came led you through a portion of my herd. I want to know if you ever saw such a sorry looking lot of cattle as they are?”

This seemed to be the opportunity that Mr. Davenport was waiting for, and he began and told us all about those troublous times in Texas during the past two years, and he said that the drought and the farmers were to blame for it. There had been a period in the history of the State when the stockmen had things all their own way; when their herds roamed over almost two thousand square miles of territory, going wherever grass and water were most abundant, and attended by only a few Mexican vaqueros, whose principal business it was to see that their employer’s outfit did not become mixed up with cattle belonging to somebody else. But, of course, this state of affairs could not continue forever in a country like ours. The soil of Texas was as well adapted to agriculture as it was to stock raising, and it was not long before people began to find it out.

When the tide of immigration begins setting toward any State or Territory, it is astonishing how quickly it will become filled up. In a very short time the farmers grew to be a power in the cattle lands of Texas. Of course they settled along the water courses, or as close to them as they could get, and when they selected their land they fenced it in and turned it up with the plough, thus depriving the cattlemen of just so many acres of pasture, and in some instances shutting them off from the streams.

Of course, too, bad blood existed between these two classes from the very first. The cattlemen saw their limits growing smaller day by day, and they did not take it very much to heart when their half wild cattle broke through the fences and ruined the fields upon which the farmers had expended so much labor; but they got fighting mad when the farmers sued them in the courts and were awarded heavy damages for their crops. Neighborhood rows and civil wars on a small scale were of common occurrence, and during this particular summer the long to be remembered drought came, and I could rest assured of one thing, and that was, matters were going to be brought to a climax. It was surely coming, and the farmers would find out one thing, and that was, that Mr. Davenport, even if he was half dead from consumption, could shoot as well as anybody.

For long months not a particle of rain fell upon the parched soil, and when the school-lands, on which large numbers of cattle grazed, were utterly barren of verdure and rendered worthless for years to come, and all the little streams went dry, the ranchmen saw ruin staring them in the face. The sufferings of the walking skeletons, which represented every dollar they had in the world, were terrible in the extreme, and grass and water must be had at any price. The nearest point at which these could be had was on the West Fork of Trinity. It was true that the most, if not all, of the land in that vicinity had been turned into farms and fenced in, but what did the desperate cattlemen care for that? Grass and water were the free gifts of Heaven, and, if necessary, they were ready to fight for their share.

What it was that induced Mr. Davenport to say all this to me, an entire stranger, I cannot imagine, unless it was because he was so excited by the financial distress which he saw hanging over him that he must tell it to somebody. Sometimes during his narrative he would get up out of his chair and pace back and forth on the porch as if all his old strength had come back to him. His eye would kindle, until I made up my mind that if all the ranchmen were like him there would be some shooting before the summer was over. For myself I heartily wished I was safe back where I belonged.

“Do you own this land where you are located?” I asked, feeling that I must say something.

“No, nor does anybody else. We are squatters. My neighbors tell me that there was a time, not so very long ago, when this ranch was located at least a hundred miles to the east of where it is now; but the farmers kept coming in until I am where I am now. You can’t keep cattle where there is land fenced in.”

“What makes you think that you are going to drive your stock away from here toward Trinity?”

“Because there were a couple of men here from the lower counties, not three weeks ago, to see if I would join in,” answered the invalid. “You see my cattle would get all mixed up with others and there is no telling when we would get them apart. That will make it necessary for me to hire some more men, and as you haven’t got anything to do, why can’t you hire out to me?”

“That’s an idea,” said I. “I will speak to my companions about it and see what they have to say. We would rather not have any shooting——”

“Oh, you will see plenty of it if you stay around with us,” said Mr. Davenport. “The minute we get near Trinity it will commence. Why, there must be as much as one hundred and seventy-five thousand head of cattle that need watering. It’s all farms up that way too.”

“I was about to say that we would rather not have any shooting around where we are,” I continued. “But if there is going to be any we would rather be where we can have a hand in it.”

“That’s the trouble, is it?” said Mr. Davenport, with a smile.

“Yes, sir. And as far as paying us anything—why, we are here with you now, and if you will give us board it is all we ask.”

I looked at Tom and he nodded his head. I glanced around for Elam, but he and Bob had disappeared. They had got into conversation and had gone off to look at something.

“That’s all right,” said Mr. Davenport. “That boy has been confined here on the ranch and he has not seen a companion before. I have been afraid to let him out of my sight. By the way, this man whom you have just introduced to me is all right?”

“Who? Elam? Oh, yes! You can trust him anywhere.”

“I mean he wouldn’t let harm come to Bob without making a fuss about it.”

“No, sir,” said I, rather astonished at the proposition. “I don’t see that any harm can come to him out here.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Mr. Davenport, with a heavy sigh, which told how heavily the matter bore on his mind, “I don’t know.”

Not to dwell too long on incidents that are not connected with this story, I will simply say that we were presented to two of the cowboys that night at supper time as the fellows Mr. Davenport had employed to help him drive his cattle north, our duties to begin on the day the march commenced. I took a great notion to the two men—tall, rawboned, and rough, and the simple and earnest manner in which they agreed with their employer on all questions concerning the conduct of the farmers, in keeping his cattle out on the barren prairie where there was neither water nor grass to be had, made me think that their hearts were in the matter.

During the next week I noticed that Bob and Elam went off somewhere immediately after breakfast and did not get back before night. That was all right to me, but I wanted to make sure that Elam knew what he was doing, so one day when I got a chance to speak to him in private I said:

“What do you and Bob do when you are gone all day?”

“Sho!” said Elam, with a laugh. “He just makes me lay under the trees and tell him stories.”

“You are sure no harm comes to him?”

“Harm? What is going to harm him out here?”

“I don’t know and his father doesn’t know; but if you are wise you will keep your eyes open.”

“Harm!” repeated Elam. “Well; I should like to see somebody harm him. He’s got a good heart, that boy has. Be they going to shoot him?”

“I don’t know what they are going to do, I tell you. If his father ever tells me I will tell you.”

During all this time Mr. Davenport kept Tom and me close to himself. It was a companionship that was entirely new to him in that country, and he wanted to make the most of it. Before I had been acquainted with him twenty-four hours I could see that he was different from most men who made stock raising a business, that for years he had been out there where he had nobody to talk to, and I was sure he had some secret to tell us. One day it all came out, as I knew it would, if we let the matter alone and did not trouble him with it. It was a hot day during the first of August and we were sitting there on the porch, trying to raise a little breeze by fanning ourselves with our hats. It was after dinner, and the Mexican cook had gone somewhere to sleep and we were there alone.

“I haven’t always been what you see me now,” said Mr. Davenport, settling back in his chair as if he had resolved upon his course. “I have a secret which I want to tell Bob, but I don’t know how to go about it. It isn’t anything of which I am ashamed,—many men have done the same before me,—but somehow I have let it go so long that it has become a task to me. I want to ask your advice about it. You are comparative strangers to me, but somehow I have taken to you and want to trust you. I haven’t had anyone around me to whom I was willing to confide it, and now I know that I am not long for this world I want to see Bob have his rights.”

With these words the invalid began his story. It was short, but we could both see how great an effort it cost him.

Mr. Davenport was an old “forty-niner.” He spent a few successful years in the gold mines and then returned to the States, and established himself as a wholesale merchant in St. Louis, his native city, and soon became known as one of its most enterprising business men. The only relatives he had in the world, except his son Bob,—who was not his son in reality,—were an unmarried uncle, who went to Texas and became a ranchman, and a half brother, who was not a relative to be proud of. Too lazy to work, this half brother, whose name was Clifford Henderson, gained a precarious living by his wits. He gambled when he could raise a stake, and borrowed of his brother when he couldn’t. He was more familiar with the police court than he was with the interior of a church, and when his generous brother’s patience was all exhausted and he positively refused to pay any more of his debts, he left that brother’s presence with a threat of vengeance on his lips.

“I will get even with you for this,” said he. “Bob is not your son, and I will see that you don’t adopt him, either. Whenever I see a notice of your death,—and you can’t live forever,—I will hunt that boy up and make him know what it is to be in want, as I am at this moment.”

The fact that Bob was not his son ought not to have weighed so heavily with the invalid as it did, but still he could not bear to enlighten him. He was the son of a friend in the gold mines, who, dying there, left Bob alone, and Mr. Davenport took him up. He christened him Davenport, and the boy always answered to his name. There never had been any doubt in his mind that Bob would some day come in for all his money, until this Clifford Henderson began his threatenings; and even after that Mr. Davenport did not wake up and attend to things as he ought.

In process of time Mr. Davenport’s unmarried uncle died, and in his will he made him executor and heir to all the property he had accumulated in Texas. In the hope that a change in the climate might prove beneficial to his health, as well as to leave that miserable Clifford Henderson and all his threatenings behind, Mr. Davenport moved to Texas and took possession of his legacy, bringing Bob with him. In fact, the two did not act like father and son, but like two brothers who could not bear to be separated. All they found when they reached Texas was a rather dilapidated old house, which was very plainly furnished, and presided over by a half-breed Mexican cook, who was so cross and surly that one could hardly get a civil word out of him. The rest of the help—there were four of them in all—were cowboys. They spent the most of their lives on the open prairie, looking out for the safety of Mr. Davenport’s cattle.

“I have got everything——”

Mr. Davenport suddenly paused and put back into his coat the large pocket book which he had been in the act of showing to us. Then he got upon his feet and carefully closed the door leading into the cabin, and walked cautiously to one end of the porch and looked around the house, then to the other end, but came back without seeing anybody.

“One has to be careful,” said he, in explanation. “I am as afraid of my help as of anything else.”

“Of your help!” I exclaimed. “If there is anybody here that you are afraid of, why don’t you discharge him?”

“Because I want to see what he is here for,” said the invalid. “He works for nothing at all, but yet he always seems to have plenty of money. You know ’Rastus Johnson?”

Yes, we did know him, and he was one of the few people about the ranch to whom I had taken a violent dislike. He was just the man to excite the contempt of a Texan, because he couldn’t ride; but when he came to Mr. Davenport’s ranch six months ago, and told a pitiful story about the luck that had befallen him in the mines, he was given odd jobs to do about the ranch for his board. There were two things that struck Mr. Davenport as peculiar, or we might say three, and tempted by something, he knew not what, he kept the man around the house as much as possible and watched his movements. One was the care he took of his six-shooters. He had a splendid pair, and when engaged in no other occupation, he was always rubbing them up until they shone like silver. The other was his story about the mines. He did not know that Mr. Davenport was an old forty-niner, and he thought he could say what he pleased to him and he would believe it. The nearest mines that Mr. Davenport knew anything of were those located about Denver, the very place we had come from; and the idea that anyone could walk a thousand miles, right through a country settled up by cattlemen and farmers, and be as poor as he was when he struck Mr. Davenport’s ranch, was ridiculous. But Mr. Davenport kept this to himself. He had Clifford Henderson in mind, and he resolved if ’Rastus attempted anything out of the way he would expose him on the spot.

As ’Rastus grew more and more at home about the ranch, other qualities developed themselves. He took to “snooping” around the house to see what he could find there, and once, when Mr. Davenport entered the ranch suddenly, he was certain that he saw ’Rastus engaged in trying to pick the lock of his desk; but ’Rastus began tumbling up his bed, and turned upon his employer with such a hearty good-morning that the invalid was inclined to believe he was mistaken.

“Yes,” said I, in response to Mr. Davenport’s question; “I believe we know something about ’Rastus. Some of the cowboys have told us a good deal about him. Is he the one you are afraid of?”

“I’ve got the whole thing right here,” said Mr. Davenport, seating himself in his chair and drawing a big fat pocket-book from his inside pocket. “It contains my will, and also instructions in regard to what I want Bob to do with the rest of our herd in case any escape the effects of the drought. It also contains a full history of the manner in which he came to me, and hints regarding those threats of Henderson—whom I sincerely trust he may never see again. In short, nothing that I could think of has been omitted.”

“You don’t think that Henderson would follow you down here, do you?” said Tom.

“My dear boy, you don’t know anything about that man if you think he wouldn’t follow me to Europe,” said Mr. Davenport sadly. “If he is alive, Bob will hear from him; and that he is still alive I am forced to believe from the actions of this man Johnson. I don’t expect to come back here, and I want you two boys to swear to what I have told you. You will, won’t you?”

Of course Tom and I agreed to it, and then we wondered what sort of a man Clifford Henderson could be to scare his half brother so badly as that.

CHAPTER III.
’RASTUS JOHNSON.

Having no wish to pry into Mr. Davenport’s affairs any further than he was willing to reveal them to us, we did not question the invalid, although there were some points in his story that I should have liked to have cleared up. He seemed to know that ’Rastus Johnson was employed by Clifford Henderson, and I wanted to know what reason he had for thinking so; but he was sadly used up by his talking, and settled back in his chair in a state of complete exhaustion. It was this state that troubled me. I began to think that when his time came to go he would go suddenly.

Presently Bob came up accompanied by Elam. I strolled off to find ’Rastus Johnson. You see I was as much interested in that pocket-book Mr. Davenport carried in his coat as I was in anything else. ’Rastus Johnson must have known that he carried it there, and if anything should happen while the invalid was alone the pocket-book would be found missing; and without a will where would Bob be? Henderson could claim his property as next of kin, and Bob would be left out in the cold. I knew that Tom understood all this as well as I did. At any rate I would speak to him about it the very first chance I had, and arrange it with him so as to keep Mr. Davenport under guard the whole time.

It did not take me long to find ’Rastus Johnson. The ranch stood on the edge of a little grove, and there, under one of the trees, I found the man of whom I was in search. His hat was pulled over his eyes, as if he were fast asleep, and the belt containing his revolvers lay near him on the ground. Evidently they had just received an extra rubbing. He started up as he heard my footsteps and pulled the hat off his face.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” said he, with a long-drawn yawn. “How-dy. What does the old man have to say to you? He says more to you than he has to me, and I’ve been on this ranch for three months.”

“Yes, he has had a good deal to say to Tom and me. He has been telling us about the threats of Clifford Henderson. Seen anything of him lately?” I asked, as if I didn’t care whether or not he answered my question.

I asked this abruptly, as I meant to do, and the answer I got set all my doubts at rest. The man was in the employ of Henderson—that was a fact; and while he used his own time in getting his wits about him, I busied myself in giving him a good looking over. He was a giant in strength and stature, long haired and full bearded, and when he sat up and looked at me, I knew I was looking into the eyes of a desperado of the worst sort. His clothes were not in keeping with the story of poverty he had told when he first came to Mr. Davenport’s ranch. They were whole and clean, and his high-top boots looked as though they had just come from the hands of the maker. There was something about the man that made me think he was wanted somewhere else—that there was a rope in keeping for him, if the parties who held it only knew where to find him. He looked at me for fully a minute without speaking, then rested his elbows on his knees and looked down at the ground.

“I don’t know the man,” said he, and he spoke so that anybody could have told that he was angry.

“There is no need of getting huffy about it,” said I carelessly. “Where is he now?”

“I tell you I am not acquainted with the man,” said he. “Henderson! I never heard the name before.”

“No offence, I hope; but I thought from the way you acted that you were in his employ. Be honest now, and tell me when you have seen him lately.”

“How have I acted?” enquired the man.

“Oh, snooping around the ranch and trying to find out things that are not intended for you to know,” I answered carelessly. “You know you have been doing that ever since you have been here, and Mr. Davenport is sorry that he ever consented to let you remain.”

“Did he tell you what I have done?”

“There is but one thing he could put his finger upon, and that was when you tried to pick the lock of his desk.”

“I never——” began Johnson.

“If you had got into it you wouldn’t have made anything by it. The man’s papers are safe.”

“I know he carries them on his person, and he’s got a little revolver handy, bless the luck. There now, I have let the cat out of the bag! There’s no one around who can hear what we say, is there? Sit down.”

I tell you things were going a great deal further than I meant to have them. I had come out there on purpose to induce Johnson to drop a hint whether or not he was in Clifford Henderson’s employ, but I had succeeded almost too well. It looked as though the man was going to take me into his confidence. It was a dangerous piece of business, too, for I knew if I did anything out of the way, I would be the mark for the bullets in one of Johnson’s shining revolvers.

“I don’t see why I should sit down,” I replied.

“Sit down a minute; I want to talk to you. You have had bad luck with your cattle,” said the man, as I picked out a comfortable place to seat myself. “You once possessed a large drove, but they were taken away from you at one pop.”

“That’s so,” I said. “If I could find the men who did it, I wouldn’t ask the law to take any stock in them. I would take it into my own hands.”

“Well, I don’t know anything about that,” said the man. “I wasn’t there, although, to tell you the truth, I have been in at the bouncing of more than one herd of cattle that was all ready to drive to market.”

“What got you in this business, anyway?” I asked suddenly.

“What business?”

“Oh, you know as well as I do. A man of your education can make a living a great deal easier than you do.”

“Look a-here, young fellow, I did not agree to make a confidant of you in everything. Perhaps I will do that after a while. What I want to get at now is this: Are you willing to work with me to have this property go where it belongs?”

“Where does it belong?”

“You mentioned the name of the man not two minutes ago—Clifford Henderson.”

“Aha! You do know that man, don’t you?”

“Yes; and now you know my secret, for I have got a secret as well as the old man,” said Johnson; and as he spoke he reached out and pulled his six shooters within easy handling distance, turning the butt of one up, so that he could catch it at a moment’s warning.

Now, I suppose some of my readers will think I was in no danger about that time, but I knew I was. My life hung upon the words I uttered during the next few minutes. If I had refused I would never have known what hurt me. Johnson would have shot me down and then reported to Mr. Davenport that I had insulted him; and as there was no one present to overhear our conversation, that would have been the last of it. Law was not as potent then as it is in Texas in our day, and Johnson’s unsupported word would have been taken, there being no evidence to the contrary. I tell you I was in something of a fix.

“How does it come that Henderson has so much interest in this property?” I enquired.

“Why, Bob is no relative of Davenport’s at all. He picked him up in the gold mines,—where his father died and left him,—named him Davenport, and the boy has been brought up to believe that he has an interest in all his stocks and bonds. I wish I had known a little more about that when I came here. I told the old man some funny stories about my being in the gold mines,” he added, with a laugh.

“And Henderson doesn’t want him to have it. It seems to me that it would be the part of policy for Henderson to come here and live with Mr. Davenport.”

“Oh, that wouldn’t do at all!” exclaimed the man hastily. “He used to live with him in St. Louis, but they had an awful row when they separated, and he is afraid the old man will go to work to adopt the boy. I tell you he don’t want him to do that!”

“It seems very strange that Mr. Davenport hasn’t adopted him before this time.”

“I lay it to his illness as much as anything. Like all persons who are troubled with an incurable disease, he thinks something will happen to take him off the minute he adopts Bob, and I tell you it’s a lucky thing for us. Well, what do you say?”

“I don’t propose to go into this thing until I know how much there is to be made out of it,” I answered, as if I had half a mind to go into it. “How much are you going to get?”

“I am not going to take my pay in half-starved cattle, I tell you,” said Johnson emphatically. “The old man has a few thousand dollars in bonds in some bank or another,—I don’t know which one it is,—and when I get that pocket-book in my hands I shall get some of those bonds. I won’t let it go without it. He ought to give you as much as he gives me.”

“How much are you going to get?” I said again.

“Twenty thousand dollars; and what I want more than anything else is that pocket-book. He has got his will in there, and I must have that before anything is done. Now, if you can steal that pocket-book and give it to me, I’ll see that you are well paid for your trouble. If Henderson gives you five thousand dollars it would go a long way toward straightening up your cattle business.”

“Well, I want some time to think about it. It is a pretty dangerous piece of work.”

“Take your own time. We shall not go off until next week. You won’t say anything to Bob or the old man about it?”

“Never a word,” I replied, hoping that he wouldn’t ask me to keep still where Tom and Elam were concerned. I couldn’t possibly get along without taking them into my confidence, for although it was new business to them, I felt the want of a little good advice.

“Because if you do—if I see you riding off alone with either one of those fellows I shall know what you are up to, and then good-by to all your chance of getting any money.”

“You need have no fear,” said I, getting upon my feet. “I shall not say a word to either one of them.”

I walked slowly toward the ranch, feeling as if I had signed my own death warrant. There was no bluster about Johnson, he wasn’t that sort; but I knew that I not only would lose all chances of getting any money by going off riding with Mr. Davenport or Bob, but I would lose my chance of life. I would be shot down at once the first time I was caught alone, and, with all my practice at revolver drawing,—that is, pulling it at a moment’s warning,—I would not stand any show at all. These Texans are a little bit quicker than cats when it comes to drawing anything.

“Of all the impudence and scandalous things that I ever heard of, that ’Rastus Johnson is the beat,” I soliloquized as I walked toward the house, wondering what I should do when I got there. “A man comes out to steal a will from another man and pitches upon me, an entire stranger, because I have had ill luck with my cattle. Of course I have no intention of doing anything of the kind, but if something should happen to get this fellow into serious trouble—— By gracious! if this man was lynched he could take me with him.”

When I reached the ranch and mounted the steps that led to the porch I found Tom and Elam sitting there alone. Mr. Davenport had talked himself into a state of complete exhaustion and had gone in to take a nap, taking Bob with him as guard. In order to secure the quietness he wanted they had closed the door after them. I felt that now was my only chance. I saw by the look of surprise on Elam’s face that Tom had been hurriedly whispering to him what Mr. Davenport had told us.

“Where have you been?” enquired Tom. “We have been waiting half an hour for you.”

“Is it a fact that this Johnson has been working for Clifford Henderson?” exclaimed Elam. “If I was in Davenport’s place I would drive him off the ranch.”

“Sh—! Don’t talk so loud,” I admonished him. “I’ve been gone half an hour, and during that time I have heard some things that will astonish you. I have learned that Johnson is in Henderson’s employ, and that he wants me to act as his accomplice.”

I uttered these words in a whisper, thinking of the listening ones there might be on the other side of that door, and when I got through I tiptoed first to one end of the porch and then to the other to keep a lookout for Johnson. I was afraid of the “snooping” qualities that the fellow had developed, and if he had suddenly come around the corner of the house and caught me in the act of whispering to my friends I would not have been at all surprised at it. Tom and Elam were both amazed at what I had told them, and looked at one another with a blank expression on their faces.

“Tom, he wants me to steal that pocket-book Mr. Davenport showed us to-day,” I continued. “He says the will is in there and he can’t do anything without it. He says the property rightfully belongs to Henderson.”

“If I were in your place I would go right straight to Mr. Davenport with it,” said Tom, speaking in a whisper this time.

“And be shot for your trouble,” chimed in Elam, waking up to the emergencies of the case.

“That’s the idea, exactly,” I went on. “He would shoot me down as soon as he would look at me, and then report to Mr. Davenport that I had insulted him; then what could anybody do about it? You fellows would have to shoot him, and that would end the matter. I promised I wouldn’t say anything to Bob or his father about it, but I had a mental reservation in my mind when it came to you. Now I want to know what I shall do about it.”

“Tell us the whole thing, and then perhaps we can pass judgment upon it,” whispered Tom. “I don’t know that I understand you.”

With that I began, and gave the boys a full history of my short interview with Johnson. It didn’t take long, for I did not hold a very long conversation with ’Rastus; and when I came to tell how readily he had included me in his plans I saw Elam wink and nod his head in a very peculiar manner. Then I knew that I had hit the nail squarely on the head when I made up my mind what ’Rastus would do to me if things didn’t work as he thought they ought to. I tiptoed to the end of the porch to see if I could discover any signs of him, and then I came back.

“You see he knows that I have had bad luck with my cattle, and he takes it for granted that I am down on everybody who has been fortunate with theirs,” I said, in conclusion. “He thinks I want to steal enough to make up for my lost herd.”

“The idea is ridiculous,” said Tom. “How in the world does he suppose Mr. Davenport had anything to do with your loss?”

“That aint neither here nor there,” said Elam. “That feller has stolen more than one herd of cattle, an’ I’ll bet on it. I shouldn’t wonder if he was one of them desperate fellows—what do you call them——”

“Desperadoes,” suggested Tom.

“I know he is,” said I. “And he is a man of education. He doesn’t talk as the Texans do at all, and I told him that a person of his learning could make a living easier than he did.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He said he didn’t agree to make a confidant of me in everything. He might do it after a while. He acknowledged that he had been in at the stealing of more than one herd that was all ready to be driven to market. Now, fellows, what shall I do about it?”

This was too much for Tom, who settled back in his chair and looked at Elam. Our backwoods friend arose to the emergency, and I considered his advice as good as any that could be given.

“You can’t do nothing about it,” he said, after rubbing his chin thoughtfully for a few minutes. “Let him go his way, an’ you go yours.”

“Yes; and then see what will happen to me if I don’t do as he says. Suppose he thinks I have had time to steal that pocket-book? If I don’t give it over to him, then what?”

“Tell him that Mr. Davenport keeps a guard over it all the while,” said Elam, “an’ that you can get no chance. Heavings an’ ’arth! I only wish I was in your boots.”

“I wish to goodness you were,” said I. “What would you do?”

“I’d let him go his way, an’ I’d go mine. That’s all I should do.”

“I guess that’s the best I could do under the circumstances,” said I, after thinking the matter over. “By the way, I think it is about time you two went out on your ride. I am of the opinion that it will be safer so. Leave me here alone, so that when Johnson comes up—— I do not believe his name is Johnson; do you?”

“’Tain’t nary one of his names, that name aint,” said Elam emphatically. “His name is Coyote Bill.”

“How do you know?” Tom and I managed to ask in concert.

“I aint never seen the man; I aint done nothing but hear about him since I have been here, but I know he is Coyote Bill,” replied Elam doggedly. “At any rate that’s the way I should act if I was him.”

Coyote Bill was emphatically a name for us to be afraid of. We had done little else than listen to the stories of his exploits since we had been in Texas. He didn’t do anything very bad, but he would steal a herd of cattle,—it didn’t make much difference how many men there were to guard them,—run them off to a little oasis there was in the Staked Plains, and slaughter them for their hides and tallow; and when the story of the theft had been forgotten, two of his men would carry the proceeds of their hunt to some place and sell them. He never killed men unless they resisted, and then he shot them down without ceremony. Many a time have we sat on the porch after dark when the cowboys were there, listening to the stories about him, and if this man was Coyote Bill he must have been highly amused at some things that were said about him. We were both inclined to doubt the story of his identity. No one had ever seen Coyote Bill, and how could Elam tell what he looked like?

“Elam, you are certainly mistaken,” said I; and the more I thought of his story the less credit I put in it. “If you had seen Coyote Bill I should be tempted to believe you; but you know you have never met him.”

“And then just think what he has done?” added Tom. “He comes up here and agrees with Carlos, a man whom he had never seen before, to go in cahoots with him. The idea is ridiculous. And how did Clifford Henderson fall in with him?”

“I don’t know anything about that,” returned Elam, as if his mind was fully made up. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I’ll bet that Carlos dassent call him Coyote Bill to his face!”

“You may safely bet that, for I aint going to do it,” said I, looking around the corner of the house. “Here he comes, boys. You had better get on your horses and make tracks away from here.”

The boys lost no time in getting off the porch and to their horses, which they had left standing close by with their bridles down, so that they would not stray away. They swung themselves into their saddles with all haste, and I sat down to await the coming of Coyote Bill, if that was his real name, and to think over what I had heard.

CHAPTER IV.
ELAM’S POOR MARKSMANSHIP.

“Coyote Bill!” I kept repeating to myself. That name had probably been given to him by the Texans on account of his being so sneaking and sly—so sly that none of the men he had robbed had ever been able to see him. What his other name was I didn’t know. While I was turning the matter over in my mind Bill came around the corner. I confess he did not look like so dangerous a fellow, and if I had met him on the prairie and been in want, I should have gone to him without any expectation of being refused. He looked surprised to see me sitting there alone.

“Where are they?” he asked, in a whisper.

“Whom do you mean?” I enquired, being determined, if I could, to answer no questions except those he had on his mind. How did I know whom he referred to when he spoke of “they,” and wanted to know where they were?

“I mean the old man and Bob, and all the rest of them,” he added. “I thought they were here with you.”

“Tom and Elam have gone off riding,—there they go,—and Mr. Davenport and Bob have gone into the ranch to have a nap. I can’t steal the pocket-book now, even if I wanted to, for Bob is keeping guard over it. It is true he don’t know what there is in it, but he is keeping watch of his father all the same.”

“Look here, Carlos,” said Bill, coming up close to the porch, “do you ever have charge of the old man in that way?”

“In what way?”

“Well, I haven’t been able to do any business in almost a year, and I am getting heartily tired of it.”

“What business do you mean?”

“Aw! Go on, now. You know what I mean. I can’t steal cattle that are half starved, for I wouldn’t make anything out of them if I did. I am getting impatient, and my boss is getting impatient, too.”

“Well?” said I, when he paused.

“I want you to see if you can’t secure possession of that pocket-book by to-morrow night,” said Bill, in a quiet way that had a volume of meaning in it. “You see, it isn’t the will that Henderson cares for. The cattle are pretty well gone up, and there won’t be a third of them left when we get to Trinity. What he cares most about is the bonds. If he can get them in his hands he will be all right.”

“Why, Coyote Bill——” I began.

I stopped suddenly, with a long-drawn gasp, for I had done the very thing I was willing to bet Elam I would not do. Bill started and looked at me closely, and one hand moved to the butt of his revolver. My heart was in my mouth. Coyote Bill’s face was a study, and I was sure my slip of the tongue had hit him in a vital spot. Understand me, I didn’t speak his name knowing what I was doing, but because I couldn’t help myself. The idea that I was to steal that pocket-book at twenty-four hours’ notice was more than I could stand, and I blurted out the first words that came into my mind. I never had had much practice in studying out the different emotions that flit across a person’s mind, but I was sure that in Coyote Bill’s expression both rage and mirth struggled for the mastery—rage, that I had suddenly found out his name since I had left him; and mirth, because I, an unarmed boy, should stand there and call him something which he didn’t like too well anyway. So I resolved to put a bold face on the matter.

“See here, Bill——” was the way I began the conversation.

“Who told you that was my name?” he asked.

“Why, Bill, I have done nothing but hear about you and your doings since I have been here,” I answered. “You certainly do not pretend to say you are not what I represented you to be?”

“Well, that’s neither here nor there,” said he, taking his hand away from his pistol. “You are a brave lad; I will say that much for you, and you ought to be one of us. What’s the reason you can’t steal the pocket-book by to-morrow night?”

I drew a long breath of relief. The worst of the danger was passed, but the recollection of what might be done to me after a while made me shudder. I had half a mind to slip away that very night, but I knew that Elam would scorn such a proposition. He meant to stay and see the thing out. I tell you I wished he stood in my boots, more than once.

“Because Bob is keeping guard over it,” I said. “He don’t know what there is in it, I tell you; but he has been made to understand that there is something in it that concerns himself, and so he is keeping an eye on it.”

“Does he know that he is in danger of losing it?”

“Yes, he does; but he don’t know where the trouble is coming from.”

“Well, you have got hold of my name, and I wish you hadn’t done it,” said Bill, looking down at the ground and kicking a chip away with his foot. “Be careful that you don’t use it where anybody else can hear it. Perhaps I can find some other way to get it. Do you sleep very sound?”

I don’t know what reply I made to this question, for it showed me that Bill was about to attempt something after we had retired to rest. I made up my mind that he would try it too, but whether or not he would succeed in getting by Elam was a different story altogether. I made it up on the spur of the moment to take Elam into my confidence. He was a fellow who could remain awake for three or four nights, and in the morning he would be as fresh and rosy as though he had enjoyed a good night’s sleep.

“You want to sleep pretty soundly to-night, whatever you may do on other occasions,” said Bill, in a very decided manner. “I shan’t be here in the morning.”

He went off, whistling softly to himself, and I went back to my chair and sat down. They told us, when we first talked of going to Texas, that we would find things very different there, and indeed I had found them so. In Denver, if a man had betrayed himself in the same careless manner that Coyote Bill had done, he would have been shot on sight; but here were three boys who knew what Bill had done, some of whom had the reputation of being quick to shoot, and they were afraid to do a thing. It was the man’s fame as a quick shot that stood him well in hand. When I came to think of it, I was disgusted with myself and everybody else. If anyone had told me that I would turn out to be such a coward I would have been very indignant at him.

The hot day wore away, and presently I saw Tom and Elam coming back. They could not stay away when they knew that something was going on behind their backs. Mr. Davenport and Bob came out; the cook began to bestir himself, the dishes rattled in the kitchen, and in a little while they told us that supper was ready. Of course we had to be as neat here as we had anywhere else, and Elam and I found ourselves at the wash-basin. There was no one in sight.

“Elam,” said I, in an excited whisper, “whatever you do, you mustn’t go to sleep to-night!”

“Sho!” answered Elam. “What’s going on to-night?”

“Coyote Bill has made up his mind to steal that pocket-book. He says that the bonds are all he wants out of it. He means some mining stocks, I suppose.”

“Well,” exclaimed Elam, burying his face in the towel, “how is he goin’ to work to get it?”

“He intends to come in after we are all asleep and feel under the pillows for it. He asked me if I slept rather soundly at night, and I don’t know what answer I made him; but I thought of you and concluded you could keep awake. I have found out, too, that his name is Coyote Bill, just as you said it was.”

“What did I tell you?” said Elam, delighted to know that he had found out something about the man. “I knowed that was the way I would act if I was him. What did he say when you told him?”

“He told me I was a brave boy and ought to be one of ‘us,’ as he explained it. Does he mean that I ought to belong to his gang and help him steal cattle?”

“Sure! You couldn’t be one of him and help do anything else, could you? How do you reckon he is going to come in?”

“I don’t know. You will have to keep wide awake and find out.”

“I’ll bet you I don’t sleep a wink to-night. If he thinks he can get away with that pocket-book let him try it; that’s all.”

“But I don’t see why he should pick me out as a brave boy and want me to join his gang.”

“Well, Carlos, I will say this fur you,” said Elam, putting the towel back on its nail and rolling down his sleeves: “You have a most innercent way of talkin’ when you get into danger, an’ a man don’t think you know that there is danger in it.”

“Nonsense! I have been afraid that Bill would shoot at any minute. I am really afraid of him.”

“Old Bill doesn’t know it, an’ that’s what makes him so reckless. I will go further an’ say you have a sassy way of talkin’. Now, you finish washin’ an’ I’ll go in an’ set down. Remember, I shan’t go to sleep at all to-night.”

I was perfectly satisfied with the assurance. You see it would not do for me to lie awake and halt Bill when he came in for fear that he would accuse me of treachery; but with Elam, who wasn’t supposed to know anything about the case, it would be different. I didn’t think that Elam’s explanation amounted to anything at all. In fact, I did not see how I could have talked in any other way. If I had become excited and reported the matter to Mr. Davenport there would have been hot work there in the cabin, for I didn’t suppose that any of my companions would have let Coyote Bill work his own sweet will on me. Having finished washing I went into the cabin and sat down. Bill was there, and he was devoting himself to the eatables before him like any other gentleman. I was astonished at the man’s nerve.

Supper over, we went out on the porch, lighted our pipes, and devoted two hours to talking. The most of the conversation referred to the time when the cattle would be along and we should get ready to march to Trinity. Everybody suspected that there was going to be a fight up there before our cattle would be allowed water, and we were a little anxious as to how it would come out. We expected to fight the sheriff and his posse and all the Texas Rangers that could be summoned against us; and we knew that these men were just as determined as we were. They were fighting for the crops upon which they had expended so much labor, and it wasn’t likely that they were men who would give way on our demand.

“Let them take a look at our cattle,” said Bob. “That will stop them. The man has yet to be born who can resist the sight of their terrible sufferings.”

“Those men up there would look on without any twinges of conscience if they saw the last one of our herds drop and die before their eyes,” returned his father. “Here’s where we expect to catch them on the fly: We shall be a mile or so behind our cattle, which will be spread out over an immense amount of prairie, and when those cattle get a sniff of the fresh water, fences won’t stop them. It is the momentum of our cattle that will take them ahead.”

I certainly hoped that such would be the case, for I knew there would be some men stationed along the banks of that stream who were pretty sure shots with the rifle. I didn’t care to make myself a target for one of them.

The conversation began to lag after a while, and finally one of the cowboys remarked that sleep had pretty near corralled him and he reckoned he would go in and go to bed; and so they all dropped off, Elam giving my arm a severe pinch as he went by. There was one thing about this arrangement that I did not like. Bill always made his bunk under the trees in the yard. He preferred to have it so. He had been accustomed to sleeping out of doors in the mines, and he was always made uneasy when he awoke and found himself in the house, for fear that he would suffocate. When it rained he would gladly come into the ranch and stay there for a week, if it stormed so long. He gathered up the blankets and the saddle which Mr. Davenport had loaned him for a bed, bade us all a cheerful good-night, and went out to his bunk. There were three of us who knew better than that. His object in sleeping out of doors was, in case some of the men he had robbed found out where he hung out, that he might have a much better chance for escape.

“He’s a cool one,” I thought, as I went in, pulled off my outer clothes, and laid down on my bunk. “I’ll see how he will feel in the morning.”

I composed myself to sleep as I always did, and lay with my eyes fastened on the door; for I knew that there was where that rascal Bill would come in. Both the doors were open, and Elam wouldn’t have the creaking of hinges to arouse him. I laid there until nearly midnight, and had not the least desire to sleep, and all the while I was treated to a concert that anyone who has slumbered in a room with half a dozen men can readily imagine. Such a chorus of snores I never heard before, and what surprised me more than anything else was, the loudest of them seemed to come from Elam’s bunk. Was my friend fairly asleep? I sometimes thought he was, and was on the point of awakening him when I heard a faint noise at the rear door—not the front one, on which my gaze was fastened. My heart beat like a trip-hammer. Slowly, and without the least noise, I turned my head to look in that direction, but could see nothing. All was still for a few seconds, and then the sound was repeated. It was a noise something like that made by dragging a heavy body over the floor; then I looked down and could distinctly see a human head. Bill had not come in erect as I thought he was going to, but had crawled in on his hands and knees, intending, if he were heard, to lie down and so escape detection. Slowly he crawled along until he came abreast of Elam’s bunk and not more than six feet from it, and then there was a commotion in that bunk and Elam’s voice called out:

“Who’s that a-comin’ there? Speak quick!”

An instant later, and before Bill had time to reply the crack of a revolver awoke the echoes of the cabin, and a short but desperate struggle took place in Elam’s direction. Then the pistol cracked again, and in an instant afterward the intruder was gone. It was all done so quickly that, although I had my hand on my revolver under my pillow, I did not have time to fire a shot.

“Elam!” I cried; “what’s the matter?”

“Well, sir, that’s the quickest man I ever saw,” stammered Elam. “I had two pulls at him, but he knocked my arm out of the way and got safe off.”

“Did you hit him?” I asked, knowing how impossible it was for him to miss at that distance.

“No, I didn’t. He hasn’t had time to get fur away, an’ I say let’s go after him. I wish he would give me another chance at him at that distance. I’d hit him sure.”

By this time the whole cabin was in an uproar. All started up with pistols in their hands, and all demanded of Elam an explanation. He gave it in a few words, adding:

“I knew mighty well that the fellow didn’t come in here fur no good. That’s the way I should have done if I had been him. He’s out there now, an’ I say let’s go after him.”

“The villain was after my pocket-book,” said Mr. Davenport, in evident excitement. “He wouldn’t have got more than five or ten dollars, for that is all there is in it. Lem, I want you and Frank to listen to me,” he added, seizing the nearest cowboy by the arm. “I have been keeping ’Rastus Johnson here until I could find out——”

“’Rastus Johnson! That aint ary one of his names,” shouted Elam. “His name is Coyote Bill!”

That was all the cowboys wanted to hear. In the meantime we had thrown off the blankets, and jumping to our feet followed the cowboys out of the ranch—all except Mr. Davenport, who, knowing that the night air wasn’t good for him, stayed behind to keep guard over his pocket-book. I followed the cowboys directly to the place of Bill’s bunk, but when we got there it was empty. He and his six-shooters were gone. I tell you I breathed a good deal easier after that.

“Coyote Bill!” said Frank, leaning one hand against the tree under which the fugitive had made his bunk. “I wondered what that fellow’s object was in coming here and passing himself off for ’Rastus Johnson, and now I know. Cattle is getting so that it doesn’t pay to steal them, and he was here to get the old man’s pocket-book.”

“And how does it come that Elam knows so much about him?” asked Lem. “You are a stranger in these parts, Elam.”

“I know I am; but that’s just the way I should have acted if I was him,” returned Elam, who began to see that he had made a mistake in claiming to know the man. “I said his name was Coyote Bill, an’ I struck centre when I did it.”

“Mr. Davenport gave us the secret history of that pocket-book, and wanted Tom and me to swear to what he told us,” I interposed, fearing that things were going a trifle too far. “That man tried to hire me to steal that pocket-book to-night, and that was the way Elam came to get a shot at him.”

“I didn’t get nary a shot at him,” exclaimed Elam. “I pulled onto him an’ he struck up my arm.”

“Let us go in and talk to Mr. Davenport about it,” said I, seeing that all I said was Greek to the cowboys. “He will tell you as much of the story as I can.”

“Did you know anything about this, Bob?” asked Frank.

“Not a word. I am as surprised as you are to hear it,” said Bob.

“Coyote Bill!” said Lem, gazing into the woods as if he had half a mind to go in pursuit of the man. “What reason have you for calling him that?”

“Because that’s the way I should have acted if I was him,” answered Elam.

“It wouldn’t pay to go after him,” said Frank. “He has laid down behind a tree and can see everything we do. Let’s go in and talk to the old man about it.”

All this conversation was crowded into a very short space of time. We hadn’t been out there two minutes before we decided that it would be a waste of time to pursue the outlaw, and that we had better go in and see what Mr. Davenport had to say about it, and I for one was very glad to get away from his bunk. Of course Bill was in ambush out there, and how did I know but that he had a bead drawn on me at that very moment? We followed the cowboys into the house, and we found Mr. Davenport sitting up on the edge of his bed.

“You didn’t get him; I can see that very plainly,” said he, as we entered. “I wish I had never heard of him in the first place.”

“You have given us a history of that pocket-book, sir,” said I, beginning my business at once, “and I beg that you will repeat it for the benefit of the cowboys. Frank and Lem haven’t said much, but I believe from their silence that they would like to know something about it.”

“Elam, how did you find out that his name was Coyote Bill?” enquired Mr. Davenport. “That name has been bothering me more than a little since you went out.”

“Perhaps you will allow me to explain that,” said I. “When I told Elam the history of that pocket-book, which I did as soon as you and Bob had gone into the ranch to have a nap, he jumped at the conclusion. He said there wasn’t another man in this part of the country who would have the cheek to act that way.”

“Have I got to go all over that thing again?” groaned Mr. Davenport. “Bob, my first word is to you. I shall have that off my mind, anyway. You are not my son.”

It was dark in the cabin, but I could tell by the tones of his voice how great an effort it was for him to say it. Then he went on and told the story very much as he had told it to me, and when he got through I did not hear anything but the muttered swear words which the cowboys exchanged with each other. It was their way of expressing utter astonishment.

CHAPTER V.
THE WEST FORK OF TRINITY.

While Mr. Davenport was speaking I noticed that Bob got up and settled down close by his father as he sat on the bunk, and placed his left arm around his neck. He meant to assure him that any revelations he would make would cause no difference with him. The man was his father, the only father he had ever known, and as such he intended to acknowledge him. I could see that Mr. Davenport was greatly encouraged by this.

“There is only one thing that I blame you for,” said Lem. “You ought to have taken Frank and me into your confidence at once.”