one of them, a man of about forty years of age named Rossiter, took control of the whole dispute. He told the Mexican leader, who said he was Don Luis, a son of Don Jose, that if he stayed any longer he would probably be arrested and put in prison for raiding American territory and threatening people. The Mexican seemed to have a good deal of pluck and declared that he would not only threaten but carry out his threat. Rossiter told him to wade right in. The loud talk began again, and a couple more Texans came up and the Mexican leader, realizing that unless he did something at once he would be too late, started to circle round the cattle, no doubt thinking that if he did something his superior numbers would scare us. In five minutes the fight had begun. In ten more it was all over. Nothing could stand against the deadly shooting of the Westerners. In five minutes one or two of the Mexicans had been killed and several wounded; half a dozen horses had gone down; it was perfectly evident that the eight or ten of us were more than a match for the twenty Mexicans, for except Don Luis, none of them seemed to have any stomach for the work, and Luis got a bullet through his arm in the first five minutes. Finally they drew off threatening and yelling and we saw no more of them. After the battle we all adjourned to Locker's and had a big drink. Nobody took the fight seriously; whipping greasers was nothing to brag about; but Rossiter thought that a claim should be made against the Mexican Government for raiding United States territory; said he was going to draw up the papers and send them to the state district attorney at Austin. The proposal was received with whoops and cheers. The idea of punishing the Mexicans for getting shot trying to recapture their own cattle appealed to us Americans as something intensely humorous. All the Texans gave their names solemnly as witnesses, and Rossiter swore he would draw up the document. Years afterwards Bent, whom I met by chance, told me that Rossiter had got forty thousand dollars on that claim. Three days later we began to move our cattle eastward to join Reece and Dell. I gave one hundred dollars as a reward to Locker's two boys who had helped us from start to finish most eagerly. A week or so later we got back to the main camp. Reece and Dell had their herd ready and fat. After a talk we resolved to go each on his own and join afterwards for the fall and winter on the ranch, if it pleased us. We took three weeks to get our bunch of cattle into condition and so began driving north in July. I spent every night in the saddle and most of the day, even though the accursed fever was shaking me. All went well with us at first; I promised my three lieutenants a third share in the profits and a small wage besides; they were as keen as mustard and did all men could do.
As soon as we reached the latitude of the Indian territory our troubles began. One wild night Indians who wore sheets and had smeared their hands with phosphorus, stampeded the cattle, and though the boys did wonders, we lost nearly a thousand head and some hundred horses, all of them broken in carefully. It was a serious loss, but not irreparable. The plains Indians, however, were as persistent that summer as mosquitoes. I never went out after game but they tried to cut me off, and once at least nothing but the speed and stamina of Blue Devil saved me. I had to give up serious shooting and depend on luck bringing us near game. Gradually the Indians following us grew more numerous and bolder. We were attacked at nightfall and daybreak three or four days running and the half-wild cattle began to get very scary. Bob did not conceal his anxiety. «Bad Injuns! Very mean Injuns!» One afternoon they followed us openly; there were at one time over a hundred in view; evidently they were getting ready for a serious attack. Bob's genius got us a respite. While Charlie was advising a pitched battle, Bob suddenly remembered that there was a scrub-oak forest some five miles further on to our right that would give us a refuge. Charlie and Bent, the best shots, lay down and began to shoot and soon made the Indians keep out of sight. In three hours we reached the scrub-oak wood and the bay or bight in it where Bob said the cattle would be safe; for nothing could get through scrub-oak, and as soon as we had driven the cattle deep into the bay and brought our wagon to the centre, on the arc of the bight, so to speak, no Indians could stampede the cattle without blotting us out first. For the moment we were safe, and as luck would have it, the water in a little creek nearby was drinkable. Still, we were besieged by over a hundred Indians and those odds were heavy, as even Bob admitted. Days passed and the siege continued: the Indians evidently meant to tire us out and get the herd, and our tempers didn't improve under the enforced idleness and vigilance. One evening Charlie was sprawling at the fire, taking up more than his share of it, when Bent, who had been looking after the cattle, came in. «Take up your legs, Charlie,» he said roughly; «you don't want the whole fire.» Charlie didn't hear, or paid no attention: Bent threw himself down on Charlie's long limbs. With a curse Charlie pushed him off: the next moment Bent had hurled himself on Charlie and had shoved his head down in the fire. After a short struggle Charlie got free and in spite of all I could do, struck Bent. Bent groped for his gun at once, but Charlie was at him striking and swinging like a wild man and Bent had to meet the attack. Till the trial came, everyone would have said that Charlie was far and away the better man, younger, too, and astonishingly powerful. But Bent evidently was no novice at the game. He side stepped Charlie's rush and hit out straight and hard and Charlie went down, but was up again like a flash and went for his man in a wild rush: soon he was down again and everyone realized that sooner or later Bent must win. Fighting, however, has a large element of chance in it, and as luck would have it just when Bent seemed most certain of winning, one of Charlie's wild swings caught him on the point of the jaw, and to our amazement he went down like a log and could not be brought to for some ten minutes. It was the first time I had seen this blow, and naturally we all exaggerated the force of it, not knowing that a light blow up against the chin jars the spinal cord and knocks any man insensible. In fact, in many cases, such a blow results in partial paralysis and life-long weakness. Charlie was inclined to brag of his victory, but Bob told him the truth; and on reflection Bent's purpose and fighting power made the deeper impression on all of us, and he himself took pains next day to warn Charlie. «Don't get in my way again,» he said to him dryly, «or I'll make meat of you.» The dire menace in his hard face was convincing. «Oh, hell,» replied Charlie, «who wants to get in your way!» Reflection teaches me that all the worst toughs on the border in my time were ex-soldiers: it was the Civil War that had bred those men to violence and the use of the revolver; it was the Civil War that produced (the «Wild Bills» and Bents who forced) the good humored westerners to hold life cheaply and to use their guns instead of fists. One evening we noticed a large increase in the force of Indians besieging us: one chief, too, on a piebald mustang appeared to be urging an immediate attack, and soon we found some of the «braves' stealing down the creek to outflank us, while a hundred others streamed past us at four hundred yards' distance, firing wildly. Bob and I went under the creek banks to stop the flankers, while Bent and Charlie and Jo brought down more than one horse and man and taught the band of Indians that a direct attack would surely cost them many lives. Still there were only five of us and a chance bullet or two might make the odds against us desperate. Talking it over, we came to the conclusion that one man should ride to Fort Dodge for help, and I was selected as the lightest, save Bob, and altogether the worst shot, besides being the only man who would certainly find his way. Accordingly, I brought up Blue Devil at once, took some pounds of jerked beef with me and a goat water-skin I had bought in Taos; a girth and stirrups quickly turned a blanket into a makeshift light saddle and I was ready. It was Bob's uncanny knowledge both of the trail and of Indian ways that gave me my chance. All the rest advised me to go north out of our bay and then ride for it. He advised me to go south where the large body of Indians had stationed themselves. «They'll not look for you there,» he said, «and you may get through unseen; half an hour's riding more will take you round them; then you have one hundred and fifty miles north on the trail-you may pick up a herd-and then one hundred and twenty miles straight west. You ought to be in Dodge in five days and back here in five more; you'll find us,» he added significantly. The little man padded Blue Devil's hoofs with some old garments he cut up and insisted on leading her away round the bight, and far to the south, and I verily believe beyond the Indian camp. There he took off the mare's pads, while I tightened the girths and started to walk, keeping the mare between me and the Indians and my ears cocked for the slightest sound. But I heard nothing and saw nothing and in an hour more had made the round and was on the trail for the north, determined in my own mind to do the two or three hundred miles in four days at most. On the fourth day I got twenty troopers from the fort with Lieutenant Winder and was leading them in a bee-line to our refuge. We got there in six days, but in the meantime the Indians had been busy. They cut a way through the scrub-oak brush that we regarded as impassable and stampeded the cattle one morning just at dawn, and our men were only able to herd off about six or seven hundred head and protect them in the extreme north corner of the bend. The Indians had all drawn off the day before I arrived with the U.S. Cavalry troopers. Next morning we began the march northwards and I had no difficulty in persuading Lieutenant Winder to give us his escort for the next four or five days. A week later we reached Wichita, where we decided to rest for a couple of days, and there we encountered another piece of bad luck. Ever since he had caught syphilis, Charlie seemed to have lost his gay temper: he became gloomy and morose and we could do nothing to cheer him up. The very first night he had to be put to bed at the gambling saloon in Wichita, where he had become speechlessly drunk.
And next day he was convinced that he had been robbed of his money by the man who kept the bank and went about swearing that he would get even with him at all costs. By the evening he had infected Bent and Joe with his insane determination, and finally I went along hoping to save him, if I could, from some disaster. Already I
