
[Illustration: I goes to reaching for the dropped belt and six-guns
when from behind, somebody sings out for me to reach for the clouds.]


                        ON THE DODGE

            Written and Illustrated by Will James

                 When the law is a bullet, it
                 does not indulge in delays.


I’d heard a few shots the night before, and I had a hunch they was being
_exchanged_; but as the deer season was open and the town dudes was out
for ’em, I just figgered maybe a couple of bucks had made their last
jump, and I let it go at that.

The next morning when I went to run in the ponies for a fresh horse to
do the day’s riding on, I finds that my big buckskin was missing, my
own horse, and one of the best I ever rode. I makes another circle of
the pasture and comes to a gate at one corner and stops. On the ground,
plain as you wanted to see, was boot-marks where some _hombre_ had got
off to open the gate and lead my buckskin through.

I sure knowed my horse’s tracks when I saw ’em, ’cause in shoeing him
I’d always take care to round the shoe aplenty so it’d protect the frog
when running through the rocks. I’d recognize that round hoof-print
anywheres, and I wasn’t apt to forget the spike-heel boot-mark, either.

I remembers the shots I’d heard, and I wonders if my horse missing that
way wasn’t on account of somebody being after somebody else and one of
’em needing a fresh horse right bad, just “borrowed” mine.

Well, I thinks he must of needed him worse than I did, and I sure give
him credit for knowing a good horse when he sees one, but I wasn’t going
to part with my buckskin that easy.

I runs the other horses in the corral and snares me the best one the
company had, opens the gate and straddles him on the jump. Out we go,
him a-bucking and a-bawling and tearing down the brush. I didn’t get
no fun out of his actions that morning--I was in too big a hurry; and
when I started to get rough, he lined out like the good horse he was.

I picks up the tracks of the horse-thief out of the fence a ways, gets
the lay of where he’d headed and rides on like I was trying to head a
bunch of mustangs. About a mile on his trail, I comes across a brown
saddle-horse looking like he’d been sat on fast and steady, and says to
my own brown as we ride by like a comet: “Looks like that _hombre_ sure
did need a fresh horse.”

I’m heading down a draw on a high lope, wondering why that feller in the
lead never tried to cover his tracks, when I hear somebody holler, and
so close that I figgered they must of heard me coming and laid for me. I
had no choice when I was told to hold ’em up, and that I done.

[Illustration: I hear somebody holler so close I had no choice when I
was told to hold ’em up.]

My thirty-thirty was took away from me; then the whole bunch that I
reckoned to be a posse, circled around and a couple searched me for
a six-gun without luck. “Do you recognize that horse, any of you?”
asked the one I took to be the sheriff. “Sure looks like the same
one,” answers a few, and one goes further to remark that my build
and clothes sure tallies up with the description.

“Where do you come from and where was you headed in such a hurry?” asks
the sheriff.

“I’m from the cow-camp on Arrow Springs,” I says, “and I’m headed on
the trail of somebody who stole my horse last night.” And riding ahead
with half a dozen carbines pointed my way, I shows ’em the trail I was
following. “Most likely one of our men,” one of ’em says; and the
sheriff backs him with, “Yes, we just let a man go awhile back.”

“The hell you say!” I busts in, getting peeved at being held back that
way. “Do you think you house-plants can tell me anything about this
track or any other tracks? What’s more,” I goes on, getting red in the
face, “I can show you where I started following it, and where whoever
stole my horse left his wore-out pony in the place of mine.”

“Now, don’t get rambunctious, young feller. Tracks is no evidence in
court nohow, and if I’m lucky enough to get you there without you
decorating a limb on the way, that’s all I care. Where was you night
before last?” he asks sudden.

“At the camp, cooking a pot of frijoles; and bedded there afterwards,” I
answers just as sudden.

“Fine for you so far, but is there anybody up at the camp who can prove
you _was_ there?”

“No, I’m there alone and keeping tab on a herd of dry stuff; but if
you’ll go to the home ranch, the foreman’ll tell you how he hired me
some two weeks back, if that’ll do any good.”

“I’m afraid it won’t,” he says. “That wouldn’t prove anything on your
whereabouts the time of the hold-up. Your appearance and your horse
are against you; you’re a stranger in these parts, and the evidence
points your way; and till your innocence is proved, I’ll have to hold
you on the charge of murder along with the robbery of the Torreon
County Bank.”

That jarred my thoughts a considerable, and it’s quite a spell before
I can round ’em to behave once more. The whole crowd is watching the
effect of what the sheriff just said, and I don’t aim to let ’em think
I was rattled any. I showed about as much expression as a gambling
Chink and finally remarks:

“I reckon you ginks has got to get _somebody_ for whatever’s been pulled
off, and it sure wouldn’t look right to go back empty-handed, would it?”
I says as I sized up the bunch.

A couple of the men are sent toward my camp to look for evidence, and
two others start on the trail I was following, which leaves the sheriff
and three men to escort me to town some sixty miles away.

I’m handcuffed; my reins are took away from me and one of the men is
leading my horse. We travel along at a good gait, and I’m glad nobody’s
saying much; it gives me a chance to think, and right at that time I was
making more use out of that think-tank of mine than I thought I’d ever
need to. I knowed I couldn’t prove that I was at my camp the night of
the hold-up, and me being just a drifting cowboy happening to drop in
the country at the wrong time, looked kinda bad for suspicious folks.

After sundown when we strike a fence and finally come to a ranch-house,
I was noticing a couple of the men was slopping all over their saddles
and getting mighty tired; but I only had feelings for the tired horses
that had to pack ’em. One of ’em suggests that they’d better call it a
day and stop at the ranch for the night, and we rides in, me feeling
worse than a trapped coyote.

I’m gawked at by all hands as we ride up; and I’m not at all pleased
when I see one _hombre_ in the family crowd that I do know, ’cause the
last time I seen him, I’d caught him blotting the brand on a critter
belonging to the company I was riding for and putting his own iron in
the place of it. I was always kind of peaceable and kept it to myself,
but between him and me, I offered to bet him that if he’d like to try
it again I could puncture him and stand off five hundred yards while I
was doing it. I’d never seen him since till now.

He gives me a kind of a mean look and I sees he’s pleased to notice
that I’m being took in for something. They hadn’t heard of the hold-up
as yet, but it wasn’t long till the news was spread.

Between bites of the bait that was laid before us, the sheriff took
it onto hisself to tell all about it. I was interested to hear what
was said, ’cause the details of the hold-up was news to me too, and
what was most serious was that the two masked bandits killed one man,
and another wasn’t expected to live; they’d got away with about ten
thousand dollars. The women-folks sure kept a long ways from me after
that.

The conversation was just about at its worst, for me, when the door
opened and in walked a young lady, the prettiest young lady I remember
ever seeing. All hands turned their heads her direction as she walked
in, and the talk was checked for a spell.

“One of the family,” I figgers as she makes her way to the other lady
folks. I hears some low talk and feels accusing fingers pointing my way.
In the meantime the sheriff and his men had cleared most everything that
was fit to eat off the table; one of the ladies inquires if they’d like
more, but none seemed to worry if _I_ had my fill.

I glances where I figger the young lady to be, and instead of getting
a scornful glance, as I’d expected, I finds a look in her eyes that’s
not at all convinced that I could of done all that was said; and a few
minutes later there’s more warm spuds and roast beef hazed over _my_
shoulder, and I knowed the hand that done the hazing was none other
than that same young lady’s.

From then on the rest of the talk that was soaring to the rafters about
me being so desperate was just like so much wind whistling through the
pines. I could see nothing and feel nothing but two brown eyes, pretty
and understanding brown eyes.

Arrangements was made for a room upstairs, and as the sheriff took the
lead, me and the deputies following, I glanced at the girl once more,
and as I went up the stairs I carried with me visions of a pretty face
with a hint of a smile.

The three deputies unrolled a round-up bed that was furnished, and
jumped in together; the sheriff and me took possession of a fancier
bed with iron bedsteads. My wrist was handcuffed to his and we made
ourselves comfortable as much as we could under the circumstances.

A lot of trouble was made, before the lamp was blowed out, to show there
was no use me trying to get away.

In turning over, my fingers come acrost a little mohair rope I used for
belt and emergency “piggin’ string” (rope to tie down cattle). It was
about six feet long, and soft.

The three deputies, after being in the cold all day and coming in a
warm house tired and getting away with all that was on the table, was
plumb helpless, and they soon slept and near raised the roof with the
snoring they done.

The sheriff, having more responsibility, was kind of restless, but after
what seemed a couple of hours he was also breathing like he never was
going to wake up, leaving me a-thinking, and a-thinking.

The girl’s face was in my mind through all what I thought; and the hint
of her smile was like a spur a-driving me to prove that she was right in
the stand she’d took. There was three reasons why I should get away and
try to get the guilty parties; one was to get my good old buckskin back;
another was to clear myself; but the main one, even though I didn’t
realize it sudden, was the girl.

If the guilty parties wasn’t found, I knowed I’d most likely take the
place of one of ’em. I just had to clear myself somehow, and the only
way was to break loose to do it.

I was still fingering the piggin’ string at my belt. I couldn’t see the
window and concludes it must be pitch-dark outside. A coyote howled, and
the dogs barked an answer.

“Wonder if I can make it?” And something inside tells me that I’d
_better_ make it, and now, or I’d never have another chance.

The sheriff acts kinda fidgety as I try to ease my piggin’ string under
his neck. I lays quiet awhile and tries it again, and about that time he
turns over just right and lays over that string as though I’d asked him
to. His turning over that way scared me, so that I didn’t dare move for
a spell; but finally I reach over and grab the end of the string that
was sticking out on the other side, makes a slip knot and puts the other
end of the string around a steel rod of the bedstead; and still hanging
on to that end, I’m ready for action.

From then on, I don’t keep things waiting. With my handcuffed arm, I
gets a short hold on the string; and with my free arm, I gets a lock
on the sheriff’s other arm all at once. That sure wakes him up, but
he can’t holler or budge, and the more he pulls with the arm that’s
handcuffed to mine, the more that string around his neck is choking
him. I whispers in his ear to tell me where I can get the keys for
the handcuffs before I hang him to dry, and by listening close I
hears: “In my money belt.”

I had to let go of his arm to get that key, but before he had time to
do anything, my fist connected with the point of his chin in a way
that sure left him limp. I takes the handcuffs off my wrist, turns the
sheriff over on his stomach and relocks the handcuffs with his arms
back of him, stuffs a piece of blanket in his mouth, and cutting the
piggin’ string in two, ties the muffler in place and uses the other
piece to anchor his feet together.

The three deputies on the floor was still snoring away and plumb
innocent of what was going on. I sneaks over to where I’d seen ’em lay
my rifle, picks out an extra six-shooter out of the holster of one of
the sleeping men and heads to where I thought the window to be.

It was locked from the inside with a stick, and removing that, I raised
it easy; and still easier I starts sliding out of the window and down as
far as my arms lets me and lets go.

I picks myself up in a bunch of dry weeds and heads for the corrals
for anything I could find to ride. I’m making record time on the way
and pretty near bumps into--somebody.

My borrowed six-shooter is pointed right at that somebody sort of
natural, and before I can think--

“Don’t shoot, cowboy,” says a soft voice. “I knowed you’d come, and I
been waiting for you. I got the best horse in the country saddled and
ready, and if you can ride him, nothing can catch you.”

I recognized the young lady; she came closer as she spoke and touched my
arm.

“Follow me,” she says, pulling on my shirt-sleeve, and the tinkle of her
spurs and the swish of her riding-skirt sounded like so much mighty fine
music as I trotted along.

But there was sounds of a commotion at the house. Either the weeds
had give me away or the sheriff come out of it. Anyway, a couple of
lights was running through the house, doors was slamming, and pretty
soon somebody fires a shot.

“Them folks sure have learnt to miss me quick,” I remarks as we push
open the corral gate. Then I’m up to the snorting pony in two jumps.
I see he’s hobbled and tied ready to fork; and sticking my rifle
through the rosadero, I takes the hobbles off of him, lets him break
away with me a-hanging to his side and I mounts him flat-footed as
he goes through the gate.

I was making a double get-away, one from the sheriff and the other
from the girl. I knowed, the way I felt, it would have seemed mighty
insulting for me to try and thank her with little words. I wanted to
let her know somehow that _if_ she ever wished to see me break my
neck, I’d do it _for her_, and with a smile.

“I sure thank you,” I says as I passes her (which goes to prove that
there’s times when a feller often says things he wants to say least),
but I had to say something.

The whole outfit was coming from the house. There was a couple more
shots fired, and with the noise of the shots, my old pony forgot to take
time to buck and lined out like a scared rabbit, me a-helping him all I
could. We hit a barb-wire fence and went through it like them wires was
threads and went down the draw, over washouts and across creeks like it
was all level country.

The old pony was stampeding, and it was the first time in my life that
I wanted a ride of that kind to last, and being that we was going the
direction I wanted to go, I couldn’t get there any too fast to suit
me.

I’m quite a few miles away from the ranch when I decides I’d better pull
up my horse if I wanted to keep him under me after daybreak, and that I
did, but I managed to keep him at a stiff trot till a good twenty-five
miles was between us and where we’d left.

Daybreak catches up with us a few miles farther on, and I figgers I’d
better stop awhile to let the pony feed and water. I takes a look over
the way I just come, and being that I’m halfways up a mountain, I gets
a good view of the valley, and if anybody is on my trail, I’d sure get
to see ’em first and at a good ten miles away.

The little old pony buckles up and tries to kick me as I gets off, and
not satisfied with that, takes a run on the hackamore rope and tries to
jerk away, but his kind of horseflesh was nothing new to me, and in a
short while he was behaving and eating as though he knowed it was the
best thing for him to do.

A good horse always did interest me, and as I’m off a ways studying
his eleven hundred pounds’ worth of good points, I notices a sackful
of something tied on the back of the saddle. “Wonder what it can be,”
I thinks out loud as I eases up to the horse and unties it. I opens
the sack, and finds all that’s necessary to the staff of life when
traveling light and fast the way I was. There was “jerky” and rice,
salt and coffee, with a big tin plate and cup throwed in to cook and
eat it out of.

“Daggone her little hide!” I says, grinning and a-trying to appreciate
the girl’s thoughtfulness. “Who’d ever thought it?”

I cooked me a bait in no time, and getting around on the outside of
it, am able to appreciate life, freedom and a good horse once again.
And wanting to keep all that, I don’t forget that these hills are
full of posse-men, and that the other bunch at the ranch would soon
be showing themselves on my trail. There was what I took to be a
small whirlwind down on the flat. If it was a dust made by the posse
they’d sure made good time considering the short stretch of daylight
they’d had to do any tracking by.

I takes another peek out on the flat before cinching up, and sure enough
there was little dark objects bobbing up and down under that dust.

I had the lead on ’em by ten miles, and I knowed if I could get on my
horse and was able to stick him, that I’d soon lose ’em; but doing
that away from the corral sure struck me as a two-man’s job. What I
was afraid of most was him getting away from me; his neck was as hard
to bend as a pine tree, and his jaw was like iron, but I had to get
action, and mighty quick, ’cause the distance between me and them was
getting shorter every minute.

It helped a lot that I’d hobbled him before he was rested up from the
ride I’d give him that night, and taking the rope off the saddle, I
passes one end of it through the hobble and tied it. About then the
old pony lets out a snort and he passes me like a blue streak. I just
has time to straighten up, give a flip to the rope that was running
through my hands, follow it a couple of jumps and get set.

My heels was buried out of sight when the stampeding pony hits the end
and the rope tightens up; he made a big jump in the air and as his front
feet are jerked out from under him, he lands in a heap and makes the old
saddle pop. I follows the rope up to him, keeping it tight so’s he can’t
get his feet back under him, and before he knows it I’ve got him tied
down solid.

I takes a needed long breath and looks out on the flat once more;
there’s no time to waste that I can see; them little dark objects of
awhile ago had growed a heap bigger and was a-bobbing up and down
faster than ever. I straightens up my stirrups, gets as much of the
saddle under me as I can, and twists the pony’s head so’s to hold
him down till I’m ready to let him up, and starts to take the rope
off his feet.

He knows it the minute he’s free and is up like a shot; he keeps on
getting up till I can near see the angels, and when he hit the earth
again he lit a-running--and straight toward the posse and the ranch.

I tries to haze and turn him with my hat, but he’d just duck out from
under it and go on the same way. So far he didn’t act as though he
wanted to take the time to buck with me, and I’d been glad of it, but
now, we just had to come to a turning-point and the only way I seen
was to scratch it out of him.

Screwing down on my saddle as tight as I could, I brings one of my
ten-point “hooks” right up along his neck far as I could reach and
drags it back. That sure stirred up the dynamite in him of a sudden,
and I had a feeling that the cantle of my saddle was a fast
mail-train and I was on the track; but he turned, and as luck would
have it I was still with him. He kept on a-turning and all mixed in
with his sunfishing and side-winding sure made it a puzzle to tell
which was heads or tails.

What worried me most was the fear of being set afoot, and I’d been
putting up a _safe_ ride on that account, but that old pony wasn’t
giving me a fair deal. He fought his head too much, and I was getting
tired of his fooling. I reaches down, gets a shorter holt on the
hackamore rope and lets him have it, both rowels a-working steady--and
two wildcats tied by the tail and throwed across the saddle couldn’t
of done any more harm.

We sure made a dust of our own out there on the side of that mountain,
and I’d enjoyed the fight more if things had of been normal, but they
wasn’t, and I had the most to lose. The little horse finally realized
that, the way I went at him, ’cause pretty soon his bucking got down
to crow-hopping and gradually settled down to a long run up the slope
of the mountain. That young lady was sure right when she said that if
I could ride him, nothing could catch me.

He was pretty well winded when we got to the top, but I could see he
was a long ways from tired, and letting him jog along easy we started
down into a deep cañon.

My mind is set on tracking down the feller what stole my buckskin
horse, and I figgers the way I’m heading I’ll sometime come across his
trail, but I’d like mighty well to shake loose from that bunch chasing
me before I get much farther; and thinking strong on that, I spots a
bunch of mustangs a mile or so to my left, and there was my chance to
leave a mighty confusing trail for them that was following.

I sneaks up out of sight and above the “fuzztails,” and when I am a
few hundred yards off, I shows up sudden over a ridge and heads their
way. I lets out a full-grown war-whoop as I rides down on ’em, and it
sure don’t take the wild ones long to make distance from that spot.

My horse being barefooted and his hoofs wore smooth, his tracks blend in
natural with that of the mustangs, and I keeps him right in the thick of
’em. The wild ones make a half-circle which takes me out of my way some,
but I’m satisfied to follow, seeing that it also takes me on the
outskirts of where I figgered some of the posse outfit might be.

My horse was ganting up and getting tired, but them wild ponies ahead
kept him wanting to catch up; and me holding him down to a steady
longlope made him all the more anxious to get there with ’em. I was
wishing I could stop to let him feed and rest awhile, but I didn’t
dare to just yet; my trail wasn’t covered up well enough.

The sun is still an hour high when the wild ones I was following came
out of the junipers and lined out across a little valley. I figgers
I’m a good seventy-five miles from where I made my get-away, and even
though my horse hates to have the mustangs leave him behind, he’s
finally willing to slow down to a walk. I rubs his sweaty neck and
tells him what a good horse he is, and for the first time I notice
his ears are in a slant that don’t show meanness.

The wild ones run ahead and plumb out of sight; the sun had gone over
the hill, and it was getting dark, and on the back trail I don’t see
no sign of any posse. Still following the trail the mustangs had left,
I begins to look for a place where I can branch off, and coming across
a good-sized creek I turns my horse up it into the mountains.

“Old pony,” I says to my horse as we’re going along in the middle of the
stream, “if that posse is within twenty miles of us, they’re sure well
mounted; and what’s more,” I goes on, “if they can tell our tracks from
all the fresh tracks we’ve left scattered through the country behind, in
front and all directions, why, they can do a heap more than any human I
know of.”

I’m a couple of miles up the mountain and still following the stream,
when a good grassy spot decides me to make camp. The little horse only
flinches as I get off this time, and he don’t offer to jerk away. I
pulls the saddle off, washes his back with cool water and hobbles him
on the tall grass, where he acts plumb contented to stay and feed.

Clouds are piling up over the mountain; it’s getting cold and feels
like winter coming on. I builds me a small Injun fire, cooks me up a
bait, and rolling a smoke, stretches out.

“Some girl,” I caught myself saying as I throwed my dead cigarette
away.... The little horse rolled out a snort the same as to say, “All
is well,” and pretty soon I’m not of the world no more.

                   *       *       *       *       *

It’s daylight when a daggone magpie hollers out and makes me set up, and
I wonders as I stirs up the coffee what’s on the program for today. My
horse acts real docile as I saddles him up; he remembers when I gives
his neck a rub that it pays to be good.

I crosses on one side of a mountain pass and on over a couple of ridges
and down into another valley of white sage and hardpan. I don’t feel it
safe to come out in the open and cross that valley, so I keeps to the
edge close to the foothills and junipers.

My horse, picking his way on the rocky trail, jars a boulder loose and
starts it down to another bigger boulder that’s just waiting for that
much of an excuse to start rolling down to the bottom of the cañon; a
good many more joins in, and a noise echoes up that can be heard a long
ways.

As the noise of the slide dies down, I hears a horse nicker, and it
sounds not over five hundred yards away. I didn’t give my horse a
chance to answer, and a hunch makes me spur up out of the cañon and
over the ridge. I was afraid of the dust I’d made in getting over the
ridge.

I’m splitting the breeze down a draw; and looking back over my
shoulder, I’m just in time to get the surprise of my life. A whole
string of riders are topping the ridge I’d just went over, and here
they come heading down on me hell-bent for election. I know it’s
them, and I know they seen my dust; and worse yet, I know they’re on
fresh horses.

“Now,” I asks the scenery, “how in Sam Hill do you reckon for them to be
in this perticular country, and so quick?” And the only answer I could
make out was that when I struck the mustangs and put too many tracks in
front of ’em for ’em to follow, they just trusted to luck and cut acrost
to where they thought I’d be heading.

My only way out is speed, and my pony is giving me all he can of that;
but it’s beginning to tell on him, and I don’t like the way he hits the
other side of the washouts we come across.

A bullet creases the bark off a piñon not far to my right; another
raises the dust closer, and even though I sure hated to, I had to start
using the spurs. The little horse does his final best, and I begins to
notice that the bullets are falling short, and it ain’t long when I’m
out of range of ’em.

“Old-timer,” I says to my tired horse as we’re drifting along, “if you
only had a few hours’ rest, we’d sure make them _hombres_ back of us
wonder how thin air could swallow us so quick.”

We tops a rise in the foothills, and ahead of us is a bunch of mustangs.
They evaporate quick, leaving a big cloud of dust. They can’t do me any
good this time; my horse is too far gone; but I thinks of another way
and proceeds to act.

I reaches over, takes the hackamore off my horse’s head and begins to
loosen the latigo. My pony’d took heart to keep up the speed awhile
longer, on account of them wild ones ahead and wanted to catch up with
’em.

                   *       *       *       *       *

My saddle cinch is loose and a-flapping to one side; my chance comes as
we go through a thick patch of buckbrush, and I takes advantage of it.
I slides off my horse and takes my saddle with me; the old pony has
nothing on him but the sweat where my saddle’d been. There’s mustangs
ahead, and with a snort and a shake of his tail he bids me good-by and
disappears.

[Illustration: I slides off my horse, my saddle with me. There’s
mustangs ahead, and he disappears.]

About that time me and my “riggin’” ain’t to be seen no more, and when
the posse rides by on the trail my horse’d left, there was a big granite
boulder and plenty of buckbrush to keep me hid, and looking straight
ahead for a dust, the sheriff and his three men kept right on a-going.

But I figgered they’d be back, sometime, and thinks I’d better be
a-moving. I hangs my saddle up a piñon tree, leaves most of the grub
with it, and, tearing up the gunnysack that was around it, proceeds
to pad up my feet so they’d leave as little track as possible. Then I
picks up my rifle and heads up towards a high point on the mountain
where I could get the lay of the country.

I’m on what seems to be a high rocky ledge, and looking around for some
shelter in it from the cold wind, and where I can hole up for the night,
I comes to the edge of _nothing_--and stops short!

Another step, and I’d went down about three hundred feet; a fire at the
bottom of it showed me how deep it was, and by that fire was two men;
maybe they’re deerhunters, I thinks. I keeps a-sizing up the outfit, and
then I spots three hobbled ponies feeding to one side a ways, and there
amongst ’em was my good old buckskin. I’d recognize his two white front
feet and his bald face anywheres.

I’m doing some tall figgering by then, and I has a hunch that before
daybreak I’ll be well mounted again and on my own horse. Seeing that
my rifle was in good working order, I slides down off my perch to
where going down is easier and surer of a foothold. I’m down about
halfways, and peeking through a buckbrush, I gets a better look at
them two _hombres_ by the fire. The more I size ’em up, the surer I
gets of my suspicions.

I’m close enough to see that one of the men is about my build, and not
only that, but it looks like he had on my clothes. The other man I
couldn’t make much out of--he was laying down on his face as though he
was asleep; but I could see he was some stouter and shorter.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Well, all appearances looked a safe bet to me, and beating my own shadow
for being noiseless, I gets to within a hundred feet of ’em.

“Stick ’em up,” I says quiet and steady for fear of their nerves being
on edge and stampeding with ’em. One of ’em flinches some but finally
reaches for the sky, the other that’s laying down don’t move, and I
warns him that playing ’possum don’t go with me; but threatening didn’t
do no good there. I’m told that he’s wounded and out of his head--I
remember the sheriff saying that one of the men had been wounded, which
altogether tallied up fine as these being the men _me_ and the sheriff
wanted.

“Take his hands away from his belt and stretch ’em out where I can see
’em then,” I says, not wanting to take the chance. That done, I walks
over toward ’em and stops, keeping the fire between. I notice that the
man laying has no gun on or near him; the other feller with his arms
still up is packing two of ’em, and I makes him shed them by telling
him to unbuckle his cartridge-belt.

I backs him off at the point of my rifle and goes to reaching for the
dropped belt and six-guns, when from behind and too close for comfort
somebody sings out for me to drop my rifle and reach for the clouds. I
does that plenty quick, and looking straight ahead like I’m told to, I
sees a grin spreading all over the face of the man I’d just held up a
minute ago.

“Where does this third party come in?” thinks I. My six-shooter is
jerked out of my belt as I try to figger a way out, and is throwed
out of reach along with my rifle; and then of a sudden the light of
the fire in front of me was snuffed out, and with a sinking feeling
all went dark....

When I come to again, I hear somebody groaning, and I tries to get my
think-tank working; my head feels about the size of a wash-tub, and
sore. Whatever that _hombre_ hit me with sure wasn’t no feather pillow.
I tries to raise a hand and finds they’re both tied; so is my feet, and
about all I can move is my eyelashes. Things come back to me gradual,
and star-gazing at the sky I notice it’s getting daybreak.

Hearing another groan, I manages to turn my head enough to see the same
_hombre_ that’d been laying there that night and in the same position.
I hears the other two talking, off a ways. It sounds by the squeak of
saddle-leather that they’re getting ready to move, and that sure wakes
me up to action.

I know I can’t afford to let ’em get away, and I sure won’t. Raising
up far as I can, I hollers for one of ’em to come over a minute.
There’s some cussing heard, but soon enough here comes the tallest
one, and he don’t no more than come near me when I asks him to give
me a chance to loosen up my right boot, that my sprained ankle was
bothering me terrible.

“You needn’t think you can pull anything over on me,” he says sarcastic.
He sizes my boot up awhile and then remarks: “But I’ll let you pull ’em
both off. I need a new pair.”

My arms and feet are free, but awful stiff; he’s standing off a few
feet, and with rifle ready for action is watching me like a hawk while
I’m fidgeting around with my right boot; I gets my right hand inside of
it as though to feel my ankle, but what I was feeling for mostly was a
gun I’d strapped in there.

(When I started out on the trail of my buckskin I figgered on getting
him; I also figgered on running acrost somebody riding him that’d be
a gunman, and I’d prepared to compete with all the tricks of the
gun-toter. This gun in my boot was what I called _my hole card_.)

My foot is up and toward him, and I’m putting on a lot of acting while
getting hold of the handle and pulling back the hammer, but I manages
that easy enough and squeezing my finger towards the trigger, I pulls.

                   *       *       *       *       *

That shot paralyzed him, and down he come. He’d no more than hit the
ground when I falls on the rifle he’d dropped, and I starts pumping lead
the direction of the other feller. His left arm was bandaged and tied
up, but he was sure using his right so that our shots was passing one
another halfways and regular.... Then I felt a pain in my left shoulder.
I begins to get groggy--and pretty soon all is quiet once more.

I must of been disconnected from my thoughts for quite a spell, ’cause
when I come to, this time the sun is way high. I straightens up to
look around and recollect things, and it all came back some as I gets
a glimpse of my buckskin feeding off a ways.

My shoulder’s stiff and sore, but feeling around for the harm the bullet
has done, I finds I’d just been creased, and being weak on account of
not having anything under my belt either in the line of grub or moisture
for the last twenty-four hours, that bullet was enough to knock me out.

I’m hankering for a drink right bad and starts looking for it on all
fours, when in my rambling, I comes across a shadow, and looking right
hard I can make out horse’s hoofs, then his legs and on up to a party
sitting on top of him and looking down at me. The warm sun had made me
weak again, and I quits right there.

Somebody’s pouring cool water down me, and when I opens my eyes again, I
feels better control of ’em. I’m asked when I et last and I can’t seem
to remember; then I gets a vision of a pot of coffee, and flapjacks,
smells frying bacon, and the dream that I’m eating evaporates with the
last bite.

“Well, I see you found your buckskin,” says a voice right close, and
recognizing that voice makes me take notice of things. It was the
sheriff’s; the posse’d rode in on me.

“And by the signs around here,” the same voice goes on, “it looks like
you just got here in time and had to do a heap of shooting in order to
get him, but I’m sure glad to see you did, ’cause along with that horse
you got the two men we wanted for the robbery, which makes you free to
go. No mistake this time.”

That last remark brought real life to me, and interested again, I takes
a look around. The two men was setting against a rock looking mighty
weak and shot up. I looks for the third, and I’m told that he was being
took in to the nearest ranch for care he was needing mighty bad.

“How does he come to be with these _hombres_?” I asks.

“He’s a Government service man out after these two outlaws,” says the
sheriff, “and your dropping in when you did is all that saved him--if
we hadn’t heard your shot, we’d never found this hole, and he’d been
left to feed the buzzards.”

“Not wanting to hog all the credit,” I says, “I’ve sure got to hand it
to you too--for camping on a feller’s trail the way you do; it wasn’t
at all comfortable.”

“Neither is a piggin’ string around a feller’s neck,” comes back the
sheriff, smiling.

                   *       *       *       *       *

It’s after sundown as I tops a ridge and stops my buckskin. Out across a
big sage and hardpan flat is a dust stirred up by the posse and their
prisoners. I watches it a spell, and starting down the other side of the
ridge, I remarks: “Buck, old horse, I’m glad you and me are naturally
peaceable, ’cause being that way not only saves us from a lot of hard
traveling, but it’s a heap easier on a feller’s think-tank.”

The evening star looks near as big as the moon as I glances up to keep
my bearings straight; I finds myself gazing at it, and then comes a
time when my vision is plumb past it, a vision of two brown eyes and a
hint of a smile.

Then the buckskin shook himself and at the same time shook me back to
realizing that I was on a horse.

“Some day soon we’re going visiting, Buck,” I says, coming to; and
untangling the knots out of my pony’s mane as I rides, I heads him up
the trail back to the cow-camp on Arrow Springs.


[Transcriber’s Notes:
1. This story appeared in the January 1930 issue of Redbook Magazine.
2. The cover image was created by the transcriber and placed in the
   public domain.]
