"I guess this isn't a case for a lawyer," he says. "The gentleman might give us a point or two, but we'd prefer you took charge. You see," he says to Burton and me earnestly; "there's been a heap of skul-duggery around here lately--horse-stealin', maimin' cattle, and the like--till we're dead sick of it. This bucco made the most bare-faced try you ever heard of--'twas like stealin' the whiskers right off your face--and us fellers in my neighbourhood, old man and all, have saw fit to copper the deal from the soda-card. We ain't for doin' this man; we're for breaking up the play--'tain't a case of law; it's a case of livin'--so if you'll oblige, Colonel?"

"All right, sir; I'll do the best I can. Who accuses this man?"

"I," says a straightforward-looking young man of about twenty odd.

"Step up, please, and tell us."

"Why, it's like this," he says. "I'm ranchin' lone-hand down on Badger. There's the wife and two kiddies, and a job for a circus-man to make both ends meet--piecin' out a few cattle and a dozen hogs with a garden patch. All I got between me and a show-down is my team.

Well, this feller comes along, played out, and asks for a drink of water. My wife's laid up--too darn much hard work for any woman--and I've got Jerry saddled by the fence, to ride for the doctor. Other horse is snake bit and weavin' in the stable with a leg like a barrel.

I goes in to get the water, and when I comes out there's this sucker dustin' off with the horse. Then I run over to C-bar-nine and routs the boys out. We took out after him, corrallin' him in a draw near the Grindstones. That's about all."

"Make any fight?" I asked.

"Naw!" says the man, disgusted. "I was wanting to put my hands on him, but he comes in like a sick cow--seemed foolish."

"How foolish?"

"Oh, just stared at us. We called to him to halt, and he stopped, kind of grinned at us and says: 'h.e.l.lo!' I'd a 'h.e.l.lo'd' him if the boys hadn't stopped me."

[Ill.u.s.tration: We called to him to halt, and he stopped, kind of grinned at us and says: "h.e.l.lo!"]

"Prisoner," I says, "this looks bad. I don't know where you come from, but you must have intelligence enough to see that this man's wife's life might have depended on that horse. You know we're straggled so out here that a horse means something more than so much a head. Why did you do this? Your actions don't seem to hang together."

The poor cuss changed face for the first time. He swallered hard and turned to his accuser. "Hope your lady didn't come to no harm?" says he.

"Why, no thankee; she didn't," says the other lad. "'Bliged to you for inquirin'."

There was a stir in the rest of the crowd. The prisoner had done good work for himself without knowing it. That question of his proved what I thought--he was no bad man. Something peculiar in the case.

Swinging an eye on the crowd, I saw I could act. I went forward and laid my hand on his shoulder, speaking kind and easy.

"Here," says I, "you've done a fool trick, and riled the boys considerable. You'd been mad, too, if somebody'd made you ride all day. But now you tell us just what happened. If it was intended to be comical, we'll kick your pants into one long ache, and let it go at that; if it was anything else, spit it out."

He stood there, fumblin' with his hands, runnin' the back of one over his forehead once in a while, tryin' to talk, but unable. You could see it stick in his throat.

"Take time," says I; "there's lots of it both sides of us."

Then he braced.

"Boys," says he, "I got a wife an' two little roosters too. I feel sorry for the trouble I made that gentleman. I got split like this.

Come to this town with seven hundred dollars, to make a start. Five hundred of that's my money, and two hundred m' wife saved up--and she was that proud and trustin' in me!" He stopped for a full minute, workin' his teeth together. "Well, I ain't much. I took to boozin'

and tryin' to put the faro games out of business. Well, I went shy--quick. The five hundred was all right," he says, kind of defiant.

"Man's got a right to do what he pleases with his own money; but . . .

but . . . well, the girl worked hard for that little old two hundred.

G.o.d Almighty! I was drunk! You don't s'pose I'd do such a thing sober?" turning to us, savage. "That ain't no excuse, howsomever," he goes on, droppin' his crop. "Comes to the point when there's nothin'

left, and then I get a letter." He begun taking things out of his pockets, dropping 'em from his big tremblin' hands. "It's somewheres here--ain't that it? My eyes is no good."

He hands me a letter, addressed to Martin Hazel, in a woman's writing.

"Well, that druv me crazy. So help me G.o.d, sir, I ain't pleadin' for no mercy--I'll take my medicine--but I didn't know no more what I was doin' when I jumped your horse than nothin'. I only wanted to get away from everybody. I was crazy. You read 'em that letter," says he, taking hold of me. "See if it wouldn't drive any man crazy."

Now, there's no good repeatin' the letter. It wasn't written for an audience, and the spellin' was accordin' to the lady's own views, but it was all about how happy they was going to be when Martin had things fixed up, and how funny the little boy was, and just like his pa, and, oh, couldn't he fix it so's they'd be with him soon, for her heart was near broke with waiting.

There was sand in my eyes before I'd read long, and that crowd of fierce lynchers was lookin' industriously upon the ground. One man chawed away on his baccy, like there'd be an earthquake if he stopped, and another lad, with a match in his mouth, scratched a cigarette on his leg, shieldin' it careful with his hands, and your Uncle w.i.l.l.y tried to fill a straight face on a four-card draw, and to talk in a tone of voice I wasn't ashamed of hearing.

During the last part of the letter the prisoner stood thoughtful, with the back of his hand to his mouth; you'd never known he was settin' his teeth into it, if it wasn't for the blood dropping from his thumb.

"The prisoner will retire," says I, with the remnants of my self-respect, "while the court pa.s.ses sentence. Go sit down under the tree yonder." He shambled off. Soon's he was out of hearin' the feller that lost the horse jumps up into the air with an oath like a streak of lightning. "Here's a fine play we come near makin' by bein'

so sudden," says he. "I wouldn't have that man's death on my soul for the whole territory--think of that poor woman! And he's paid the freight. Colonel, I want to thank you for drawin' things down."

So he come up and shook me by the hand, and up files the rest and does the same thing.

"Now, friends," says I, "hold on. Court hasn't pa.s.sed sentence yet. I pa.s.s that this crowd put up to the tune of what it can spare to buy"--consulting the letter--"to buy Peggy a ticket West, kids included, exceptin' only the gentleman that lost the horse."

"Why, we ain't broke altogether on Badger!" says he. "You ain't goin'

to bar me, boys?"

"Not on your life, if that's the way you feel," says I. I don't know what amount that crowd could spare, but I'll bet high on one thing. If you'd strong-armed the gang, you wouldn't start a bank with the proceeds after the collection was taken. There wasn't a nickel in the outfit. "I'm glad I didn't bring any more with me," says Burton, strapping himself.

Of course, I was appointed to break the news to the prisoner. He busted then; put his head on his arm and cried like a baby. But he braced quick and stepped up to the lads. "There ain't nothing I can say except thank you," says he. "I want to get each man's name so's I can pay him back. Now, if anybody here knows of a job of work I can get--well, you know what it would mean to me. Sporty life is done for me, friends; I'll work hard for any man that'll take me."

"I got you," I says. "Come along with me and I'll explain."

Then we said by-by to the boys. I played the grand with 'em still, and I'll just tell you why, me and you bein' such old friends. Although it may sound queer, coming from my mouth, yet it was because I thought I might give them boys the proper steer, sometime. You can't talk Sunday-school to young fellers like that! They don't pay no attention to what a gent in black clothes and a choker tells 'em; but suppose Chantay Seeche Red--rippin', roarin' Red Saunders, that fears the face of no man, nor the hoof of no jacka.s.s--lays his hand on a boy's shoulder, and says, "Son, I wouldn't twist it just like that." Is he goin' to get listened to? I reckon yes. So I played straight for their young imaginations, and I had 'em cinched to the last hole. And after the last one had pulled my flipper, and hoped he'd meet me soon again, me and Burton and the new hired man took out after sheep.

"But," says Burton, still sort of dazed, "G.o.d only knows what we'll meet before we find them. Even sheep aren't so peaceful in this country."

He was right, too. However, when I start for sheep, I get 'em. You can see by the deep-laid plan I set to catch help for the ranch, how there's nothing for fortune to do but lay down and holler when I make up my mind.

Agamemnon and the Fall of Troy

Me and Aggy were snuggled up against the sandpaper edge as cute as anything, said Hy Smith. Even our consciences had gone back on us--they didn't have nothing to work on. The town looked like it had been deserted and then found by a party of citizens worse off than the first.

The only respectable thing in the hull darn shack-heap was Aggy's black long-tailed coat and black-brimmed hat. And they made the rest of the place look so miserable that Ag wouldn't have wore 'em if he'd had another hat and a shirt. We was a pair of twin twisters that had busted our proud and graceful forms on a sc.r.a.p-iron heap.

I s'pose it was the turible depression of bein' stuck in such a hole, or some sudden weakenin' of the brain; but anyhow, in that same town of Lost Dog, Agamemnon G. Jones and Hy Smith ran hollerin' into a faint away game.

We paid ten dollars for a map showin' the location of the Lost Injun mine, from a paralytic partially roomin' at the Inter-Cosmopolitan Hotel. The Inter-Cosmopolitan had got pretty near finished, when the boom exploded with a loud sigh.

One-half the roof was missin', and the clapboardin' didn't come quite to the top, but that paralytic took it good-natured, sayin' that as he wasn't more'n half a man, half a hotel was plenty good enough for him.

But ah! he allus wound up, if he could get the proper motion in his hind legs, he'd be up and find his Lost Injun mine, and after that no dull care for him.

I ain't goin' to describe that gentleman any more. When I say he unloaded a map of that Lost Injun mine, with the very spot marked with a red cross, anybody'll understand that the paralysis hadn't affected his head none.

You see, he was so quiet and patient under his afflictions, and he talked it off so smooth, that the flyest gent that ever lived could be excused for slippin' up and gettin' stuck in the discourse before he knew that gravitation was workin' at the same old stand.

Now, for a straight-away dream-builder give me Aggy. He could talk the horns off a steer, and that steer would beller with happiness to think he was rid of a nuisance.