True Grit

SEVEN

Rooster was stirring about the next morning before the sun had cleared the higher mountains to the east. He seemed little worse for the wear despite the hard riding and the drinking excesses and the short sleep. He did insist on having coffee and he made a little fire of oak sticks to boil his water. The fire gave off hardly any smoke, white wisps that were quickly gone, but LaBoeuf called it a foolish indulgence, seeing we were so close to our quarry.

I felt as though I had only just closed my eyes. The water in the canteens was low and they would not let me have any for washing. I got the canvas bucket and put my revolver in it and set off down the hill looking for a spring or a runoff stream.

The slope was gentle at first and then it fell off rather sharply. The brush grew thicker and I checked my descent by grabbing bushes. Down and down I went. As I neared the bottom, dreading the return climb, I heard splashing and blowing noises. My thought was: What on earth! Then I came into the open on a creek bank. On the other side there was a man watering some horses.

The man was none other than Tom Chaney!

You may readily imagine that I registered shock at the sight of that squat assassin. He had not yet seen me, nor heard me either because of the noise made by the horses. His rifle was slung across his back on the cotton plow line. I thought to turn and run but I could not move. I stood there fixed.

Then he saw me. He gave a start and brought the rifle quickly into play. He held the rifle on me and peered across the little stream and studied me.

He said, “Well, now, I know you. Your name is Mattie. You are little Mattie the bookkeeper. Isn’t this something.” He grinned and took the rifle from play and slung it carelessly over a shoulder.

I said, “Yes, and I know you, Tom Chaney.”

He said, “What are you doing here?”

I said, “I came to fetch water.”

“What are you doing here in these mountains?”

I reached into the bucket and brought out my dragoon revolver. I dropped the bucket and held the revolver in both hands. I said, “I am here to take you back to Fort Smith.”

Chaney laughed and said, “Well, I will not go. How do you like that?”

I said, “There is a posse of officers up on the hill who will force you to go.”

“That is interesting news,” said he. “How many is up there?”

“Right around fifty. They are all well armed and they mean business. What I want you to do now is leave those horses and come across the creek and walk in front of me up the hill.”

He said, “I think I will oblige the officers to come after me.” He began to gather the horses together. There were five of them but Papa’s horse Judy was not among them.

I said, “If you refuse to go I will have to shoot you.”

He went on with his work and said, “Oh? Then you had better cock your piece.”

I had forgotten about that. I pulled the hammer back with both thumbs.

“All the way back till it locks,” said Chaney.

“I know how to do it,” said I. When it was ready I said, “You will not go with me?”

“I think not,” said he. “It is just the other way around. You are going with me.”

I pointed the revolver at his belly and shot him down. The explosion kicked me backwards and caused me to lose my footing and the pistol jumped from my hand. I lost no time in recovering it and getting to my feet. The ball had struck Chaney’s side and knocked him into a sitting position against a tree. I heard Rooster or LaBoeuf call out for me. “I am down here!” I replied. There was another shout from the hill above Chaney.

He was holding both hands down on his side. He said, “I did not think you would do it.”

I said, “What do you think now?”

He said, “One of my short ribs is broken. It hurts every breath I take.”

I said, “You killed my father when he was trying to help you. I have one of the gold pieces you took from him. Now give me the other.”

“I regret that shooting,” said he. “Mr. Ross was decent to me but he ought not to have meddled in my business. I was drinking and I was mad through and through. Nothing has gone right for me.”

There was more yelling from the hills.

I said, “No, you are just a piece of trash, that is all. They say you shot a senator in the state of Texas.”

“That man threatened my life. I was justified. Everything is against me. Now I am shot by a child.”

“Get up on your feet and come across that creek before I shoot you again. My father took you in when you were hungry.”

“You will have to help me up.”

“No, I will not help you. Get up yourself.”

He made a quick move for a chunk of wood and I pulled the trigger and the hammer snapped on a bad percussion cap. I made haste to try another chamber but the hammer snapped dead again. I had not time for a third try. Chaney flung the heavy piece of wood and it caught me in the chest and laid me out backwards.

He came splashing across the creek and he jerked me up by my coat and commenced slapping me and cursing me and my father. That was his cur nature, to change from a whining baby to a vicious bully as circumstances permitted. He stuck my revolver in his belt and pulled me stumbling through the water. The horses were milling about and he managed to catch two of them by their halters while holding me with the other hand.

I heard Rooster and LaBoeuf crashing down through the brush behind us and calling out for me. “Down here! Hurry up!” I shouted, and Chaney let go of my coat just long enough to give me another stinging slap.

I must tell you that the slopes rose steeply on either side of the creek. Just as the two peace officers were running down on one side, so were Chaney’s bandit friends running down the other, so that both parties were converging on the hollow and the little mountain stream.

The bandits won the foot race. There were two of them and one was a little man in “woolly chaps” whom I rightly took to be Lucky Ned Pepper. He was still hatless. The other was taller and a quite well-dressed man in a linen suit and a bearskin coat, and his hat tied fast by a slip-string under his chin. This man was the Mexican gambler who called himself The Original Greaser Bob. They broke upon us suddenly and poured a terrible volley of fire across the creek with their Winchester repeating rifles. Lucky Ned Pepper said to Chaney, “Take them horses you got and move!”

Chaney did as he was told and we started up with the horses. It was hard climbing. Lucky Ned Pepper and the Mexican remained behind and exchanged shots with Rooster and LaBoeuf while trying to catch the other horses. I heard running splashes as one of the officers reached the creek, then a flurry of shots as he was made to retreat.

Chaney had to stop and catch his breath after thirty or forty yards of pulling me and the two horses behind him. Blood showed through on his shirt. Lucky Ned Pepper and Greaser Bob overtook us there. They were pulling two horses. I supposed the fifth horse had run away or been killed. The leads of these two horses were turned over to Chaney and Lucky Ned Pepper said to him, “Get on up that hill and don’t be stopping again!”

The bandit chieftain took me roughly by the arm. He said, “Who all is down there?”

“Marshal Cogburn and fifty more officers,” said I.

He shook me like a terrier shaking a rat. “Tell me another lie and I will stove in your head!” Part of his upper lip was missing, a sort of gap on one side that caused him to make a whistling noise as he spoke. Three or four teeth were broken off there as well, yet he made himself clearly understood.

Thinking it best, I said, “It is Marshal Cogburn and another man.”

He flung me to the ground and put a boot on my neck to hold me while he reloaded his rifle from a cartridge belt. He shouted out, “Rooster, can you hear me?” There was no reply. The Original Greaser was standing there with us and he broke the silence by firing down the hill. Lucky Ned Pepper shouted, “You answer me, Rooster! I will kill this girl! You know I will do it!”

Rooster called up from below, “The girl is nothing to me! She is a runaway from Arkansas!”

“That’s very well!” said Lucky Ned Pepper. “Do you advise me to kill her?”

“Do what you think is best, Ned!” replied Rooster. “She is nothing to me but a lost child! Think it over first.”

“I have already thought it over! You and Potter get mounted double fast! If I see you riding over that bald ridge to the northwest I will spare the girl! You have five minutes!”

“We will need more time!”

“I will not give you any more!”

“There will be a party of marshals in here soon, Ned! Let me have Chaney and the girl and I will mislead them for six hours!”

“Too thin, Rooster! Too thin! I won’t trust you!”

“I will cover you till dark!”

“Your five minutes is running! No more talk!”

Lucky Ned Pepper pulled me to my feet. Rooster called up again, saying, “We are leaving but you must give us time!”

The bandit chieftain made no reply. He brushed the snow and dirt from my face and said, “Your life depends upon their actions. I have never busted a cap on a woman or anybody much under sixteen years but I will do what I have to do.”

I said, “There is some mix-up here. I am Mattie Ross of near Dardanelle, Arkansas. My family has property and I don’t know why I am being treated like this.”

Lucky Ned Pepper said, “It is enough that you know I will do what I have to do.”

We made our way up the hill. A little farther along we came across a bandit armed with a shotgun and squatting behind a big slab of limestone. This man’s name was Harold Permalee. I believe he was simpleminded. He gobbled at me like a turkey until Lucky Ned Pepper made him hush. Greaser Bob was told to stay there with him behind the rock and keep a watch below. I had seen this Mexican gambler fall from Rooster’s shots at the dugout but he appeared now to be in perfect health and there was no outward evidence of a wound. When we left them there Harold Permalee made a noise like “Whooooo-haaaaaaa!” and this time it was The Greaser who made him hush.

Lucky Ned Pepper pushed me along in front of him through the brush. There was no trail. His woolly chaps sang as they swished back and forth, something like corduroy trousers. He was little and wiry and no doubt a hard customer, but still his wind was not good and he was blowing like a man with asthma by the time we had ascended to the bandits’ lair.

They had made their camp on a bare rock shelf some seventy yards or so below the crest of the mountain. Pine timber grew in abundance below and above and on all sides. No apparent trails led to the place.

The ledge was mostly level but broken here and there by deep pits and fissures. A shallow cave provided sleeping quarters, as I saw bedding and saddles strewn about inside. A wagon sheet, now pulled back, served for a door and windbreak. The horses were tied in the cover of trees. It was quite windy up there and the little cooking fire in front of the cave was protected by a circle of rocks. The site overlooked a wide expanse of ground to the west and north.

Tom Chaney was sitting by the fire with his shirt pulled up and another man was ministering to him, tying a pad of cloth to his wounded side with a cotton rope. The man laughed as he cinched the rope up tight and caused Chaney to whimper with pain. “Waw, waw, waw,” said the man, making sounds like a bawling calf in mockery of Chaney.

This man was Farrell Permalee, a younger brother to Harold Parmalee. He wore a long blue army overcoat with officers’ boards on the shoulders. Harold Parmalee had participated in the robbery of the Katy Flyer and Farrell joined the bandits later that night when they swapped horses at Ma Permalee’s place.

The Permalee woman was a notorious receiver of stolen livestock but was never brought to law. Her husband, Henry Joe Permalee, killed himself with a dynamite cap in the ugly act of wrecking a passenger train. A family of criminal trash! Of her youngest boys, Carroll Permalee lived long enough to be put to death in the Electric Chair, and not long afterward Darryl Permalee was shot to death at the wheel of a motorcar by a bank “dick” and a constable in Mena, Arkansas. No, do not compare them to Henry Starr or the Dalton brothers. Certainly Starr and the Daltons were robbers and reckless characters but they were not simple and they were not altogether rotten. You will remember that Bob and Grat Dalton served as marshals for Judge Parker, and Bob was a fine one, they say. Upright men gone bad! What makes them take the wrong road? Bill Doolin too. A cow-boy gone wrong.

When Lucky Ned Pepper and I gained the rock ledge Chaney jumped up and made for me. “I will wring your scrawny neck!” he exclaimed. Lucky Ned Pepper pushed him aside and said, “No, I won’t have it. Let that doctoring go and get the horses saddled. Lend him a hand, Farrell.”

He pushed me down by the fire and said, “Sit there and be still.” When he had caught his breath he took a spyglass from his coat and searched the rocky dome to the west. He saw nothing and took a seat by the fire and drank coffee from a can and ate some bacon from a skillet with his hands. There was plenty of meat and several cans of water in the fire, some with plain water and some with coffee already brewed. I concluded the bandits had been at their breakfast when they were alarmed by the gunshot down below.

I said, “Can I have some of that bacon?”

Lucky Ned Pepper said, “Help yourself. Have some coffee.”

“I don’t drink coffee. Where is the bread?”

“We lost it. Tell me what you are doing here.”

I took a piece of bacon and chewed on it. “I will be glad to tell you,” said I. “You will see I am in the right. Tom Chaney there shot my father to death in Fort Smith and robbed him of two gold pieces and stole his mare. Her name is Judy but I do not see her here. I was informed Rooster Cogburn had grit and I hired him out to find the murderer. A few minutes ago I came upon Chaney down there watering horses. He would not be taken in charge and I shot him. If I had killed him I would not now be in this fix. My revolver misfired twice.”

“They will do it,” said Lucky Ned Pepper. “It will embarrass you every time.” Then he laughed. He said, “Most girls like play pretties, but you like guns, don’t you?”

“I don’t care a thing in the world about guns. If I did I would have one that worked.”

Chaney was carrying a load of bedding from the cave. He said, “I was shot from ambush, Ned. The horses was blowing and making noise. It was one of them officers that got me.”

I said, “How can you stand there and tell such a big story?”

Chaney picked up a stick and pitched it into a big crack in the ledge. He said, “There is a ball of rattlesnakes down there in that pit and I am going to throw you in it. How do you like that?”

“No, you won’t,” said I. “This man will not let you have your way. He is your boss and you must do as he tells you.”

Lucky Ned Pepper again took his glass and looked across at the ridge.

Chaney said, “Five minutes is well up.”

“I will give them a little more time,” said the bandit chieftain.

“How much more?” said Chaney.

“Till I think they have had enough.”

Greaser Bob called up from below saying, “They are gone, Ned! I can hear nothing! We had best make a move!”

Lucky Ned Pepper replied, “Hold fast for a while!”

Then he returned to his breakfast. He said, “Was that Rooster and Potter that waylaid us last night?”

I said, “The man’s name is not Potter, it is LaBoeuf. He is an officer from Texas. He is looking for Chaney too, though he calls him by another name.”

“Is he the one with the buffalo gun?”

“He calls it a Sharps rifle. His arm was hurt in the fight.”

“He shot my horse. A man from Texas has no authority to fire at me.”

“I know nothing about that. I have a good lawyer at home.”

“Did they take Quincy and Moon?”

“They are both dead. It was a terrible thing to see. I was in the very middle of it. Do you need a good lawyer?”

“I need a good judge. What about Haze? An old fellow.”

“Yes, he and the young man were both killed.”

“I saw Billy was dead when he was struck. I thought Haze might have made it. He was tough as boot leather. I am sorry for him.”

“Are you not sorry for the boy Billy?”

“He should never have been there. There was nothing I could do for him.”

“How did you know he was dead?”

“I could tell. I advised him against coming, and then give in to him against what I knowed was best. Where did you take them?”

“To McAlester’s store.”

“I will tell you what he did at Wagoner’s Switch.”

“My lawyer has political influence.”

“This will amuse you. I posted him with the horses out of danger and told him to fire a string of shots with his rifle now and then. You must have shooting for the way it keeps the passengers in their seats. Well, he started out all right and then as the job went along I noticed the shots had stopped. I figured Billy Boy had run for home and a plate of mother’s soup. Bob went to see about him and he found the boy standing out there in the dark shucking good shells out of his guns. He thought he was shooting but he was so scared he could not remember to pull the trigger. That was how green he was, green as a July persimmon.”

I said, “You do not show much kindly feeling for a young man who saved your life.”

“I am happy he done it,” said Lucky Ned Pepper. “I don’t say he wan’t game, I say he was green. All kids is game, but a man will keep his head and look out for his own self. Look at old Haze. Well, he is dead now but he should have been dead ten times afore now. Yes, and your good friend Rooster. That goes for him as well.”

“He is not my friend.”

Farrell Permalee made a whooping noise like that of his brother and said, “There they be!”

I looked over to the northwest and saw two riders approaching the top of the ridge. Little Blackie, riderless, was tied behind them. Lucky Ned Pepper brought his glass into play but I could see them well enough without such aid. When they reached the crest they paused and turned our way and Rooster fired a pistol in the air. I saw the smoke before the noise reached us. Lucky Ned Pepper pulled his revolver and fired an answering shot. Then Rooster and LaBoeuf disappeared over the hill. The last thing I saw was Little Blackie.

I think it did not come home to me until that moment what my situation was. I had not thought Rooster or LaBoeuf would give in to the bandits so easily. It was in my mind that they would slip up through the brush and attack the bandits while they were disorganized, or employ some clever ruse known only by detectives to bring the bandits to heel. Now they were gone! The officers had left me! I was utterly cast down and for the first time I feared for my life. My mind was filled with anxiety.

Who was to blame? Deputy Marshal Rooster Cogburn! The gabbing drunken fool had made a mistake of four miles and led us directly into the robbers’ lair. A keen detective! Yes, and in an earlier state of drunkenness he had placed faulty caps in my revolver, causing it to fail me in a time of need. That was not enough; now he had abandoned me in this howling wilderness to a gang of cutthroats who cared not a rap for the blood of their own companions, and how much less for that of a helpless and unwanted youngster! Was this what they called grit in Fort Smith? We called it something else in Yell County!

Lucky Ned Pepper shouted out for The Original Greaser and Harold Permalee to leave their watch post and come to the camp. The four horses were saddled and in readiness. Lucky Ned Pepper looked over the mounts, then at the spare saddle that lay on the ground. It was an old saddle but a handsome one, decorated with fixtures of beaten silver.

He said, “That is Bob’s saddle.”

Tom Chaney said, “It was Bob’s horse we lost.”

“That you lost,” said the bandit chieftain. “Unsaddle that gray and put Bob’s saddle up.”

“I am riding the gray,” said Chaney.

“I have other plans for you.”

Chaney set about unsaddling the gray horse. He said, “I will be riding behind Bob?”

“No, it will be too chancy with two men up if it comes to a race. When we reach Ma’s house I will send Carroll back to fetch you with a fresh mount. I want you to wait here with the girl. You will be out by dark. We are going to ‘The Old Place’ and you can meet us there.”

“Well, I don’t like that,” said Chaney. “Let me ride with you, Ned, just out of here anyway.”

“No.”

“Them marshals will be up here.”

“They will guess we are all gone.”

I said, “I am not staying here by myself with Tom Chaney.”

Lucky Ned Pepper said, “That is the way I will have it.”

“He will kill me,” said I. “You have heard him say it. He has killed my father and now you will let him kill me.”

“He will do no such thing,” said the bandit chieftain. “Tom, do you know the crossing at Cypress Forks, near the log meetinghouse?”

“I know the place.”

“You will take the girl there and leave her.”

Then to me, “You can stay the night in the meetinghouse. There is a dummy called Flanagan lives about two miles up the creek. He has a mule and he will see you to McAlester’s. He cannot speak or hear but he can read. Can you write?”

“Yes,” said I. “Let me go now on foot. I will find my way out.”

“No, I won’t have it. Tom will not harm you. Do you understand that, Tom? If any harm comes to this child you do not get paid.”

Chaney said, “Farrell, let me ride up with you.”

Farrell Permalee laughed and made noises like an owl, saying, “Hoo, hoo, hoo.” Harold Permalee and The Original Greaser Bob came up and Chaney commenced to plead with them to share their mounts. Greaser Bob said no. The Permalee brothers now teamed together like silly boys, and would give Chaney no sensible answer. Harold Permalee would interrupt Chaney’s question each time with mockery, making animal sounds such as are made by pigs and goats and sheep, and Farrell would laugh at the sport and say, “Do it again, Harold. Do a goat.”

Chaney said, “Everything is against me.”

Lucky Ned Pepper made sure the buckles were fastened good on his saddle wallets.

Greaser Bob said, “Ned, let us cut up the winnings now.”

“There will be time for that at ‘The Old Place,’” replied the bandit chieftain.

“We have been in two scraps already,” said The Greaser. “We have lost two men. I would feel easier if I was carrying my own winnings.”

Lucky Ned Pepper said, “Well, Bob, I thought your interest was in saving time.”

“It will not take long. I will feel easier.”

“Very well then. It suits me. I want you to feel easy.”

He reached inside one of the saddle wallets and pulled out four packets of greenbacks and pitched them to Greaser Bob. “How is that?”

Greaser Bob said, “You will not count it?”

“We won’t quarrel over a dollar or two.” Then he gave one packet to Harold Permalee and a single $50 note to Farrell Permalee. The brothers said, “Whooooo-haaaaa! Whooooo-haaaaa!” I wondered that they did not press for more, in light of the total amount realized in the robbery, but I supposed they had agreed to a fixed wage for their services. I judged too that they were somewhat ignorant of the value of money.

Lucky Ned Pepper went to buckle up the wallet again. He said, “I will keep your winnings with mine, Tom. You will be paid tonight at ‘The Old Place.’”

Chaney said, “Nothing is going right for me.”

Greaser Bob said, “What about the registered pouch?”

“Well, and what about it?” said Lucky Ned Pepper. “Are you expecting a letter, Bob?”

“If there is any money in it we may as well have it now. It makes no sense to carry the pouch about for evidence.”

“You still don’t feel easy?”

“You are making too much of my words, Ned.”

Lucky Ned Pepper thought about it. He said, “Well, maybe so.” Once more he unbuckled the straps. He took out a locked canvas bag and cut it open with a Barlow knife and dumped the contents on the ground. He grinned and said, “Christmas gift!” Of course that is what children shout to one another early on Christmas morning, the game being to shout it first. I had not thought before of this disfigured robber having had a childhood. I expect he was mean to cats and made rude noises in church when he was not asleep. When he needed a firm restraining hand, it was not there. An old story!

There were only six or seven pieces of mail in the bag. There were some personal letters, one with twenty dollars in it, and some documents that appeared to be of a legal description, such as contracts. Lucky Ned Pepper glanced at them and flung them away. A bulky gray envelope tied with ribbon held a packet of one-hundred twenty-dollar notes on the Whelper Commercial Bank of Denison, Texas. Another envelope held a check.

Lucky Ned Pepper studied it, then said to me, “Do you read well?”

“I read very well,” said I.

He passed over the check. “Is this any good to me?”

It was a cashier’s check for $2,750 drawn on the Grangers Trust Co. of Topeka, Kansas, to a man named Marshall Purvis. I said, “This is a cashier’s check for $2,750 drawn on the Grangers Trust Co. of Topeka, Kansas, to a man named Marshall Purvis.”

“I can see what it is worth,” said the bandit. “Is it any good?”

“It is good if the bank is good,” said I. “But it must be endorsed by this Purvis. The bank guarantees the check account is good.”

“What about these notes?”

I looked over the banknotes. They were brand-new. I said, “They are not signed. They are no good unless they are signed.”

“Can you not sign them?”

“They must be signed by Mr. Whelper, the president of the bank.”

“Is it such a hard name to spell?”

“It is an unusual name but it is not hard to spell. The name is printed right here. That is his signature, the printed signature of Monroe G. B. Whelper, the president of the Whelper Commercial Bank of Denison, Texas. That signature must be matched over here.”

“I want you to sign them. And this check too.”

Naturally I did not wish to use my education in this robber’s service and I hesitated.

He said, “I will box your ears until your head rings.”

I said, “I have nothing to write with.”

He drew a cartridge from his belt and opened his Barlow knife again. “This will answer. I will shave the lead down.”

“They must be signed in ink.”

Greaser Bob said, “We can attend to it later, Ned. This matter will keep.”

“We will attend to it now,” replied the bandit chieftain. “You are the one who wanted to look at the mail. This paper is worth over four thousand dollars with a little writing. The girl can write. Harold, go to the trash pile and fetch me a good stout turkey feather, a dry one, a big tail feather.” Then he pulled the bullet out of the cartridge case with his snag teeth and poured the black powder in the palm of his hand. He spit on it through the gap and stirred the glutinous mess about with a finger.

Harold Permalee brought back a handful of feathers and Lucky Ned Pepper chose one and cut the tip off with his knife and reamed out the hole a little. He dipped the quill into the “ink” and printed NED on his wrist in childish characters. He said, “There. You see. That is my name. Is it not?”

I said, “Yes, that is Ned.”

He handed me the feather. “Now go to it.”

A flat rock with one of the contracts laid on it was made to serve for a desk. It is not in me to do poor work where writing is concerned and I toiled earnestly at making faithful copies of Mr. Whelper’s signature. However, the makeshift pen and ink were not satisfactory. The writing jumped and spread wide and pinched thin. It looked as though it had been done with a stick. My thought was: Who will believe that Mr. Whelper signs his banknotes with a stick?

But the unlettered bandit chieftain knew little of the world of banking except for such glimpses as he got over a gun sight, and he was pleased with the work. I signed and signed, using his palm for an inkwell. It was very tiring. As soon as I had finished one note he would snatch it up and pass me another.

He said, “They are as good as gold, Bob. I will trade them at Colbert’s.”

Greaser Bob said, “Nothing on paper is as good as gold. That is my belief.”

“Well, that is how much a damned Mexican knows.”

“It is every man to his own principles. Tell her to hurry along.”

When the criminal task was completed Lucky Ned Pepper put the notes and the check in the gray envelope and secured it in his saddle wallet. He said, “Tom, we will see you tonight. Make yourself agreeable to this child. Little Carroll will be here before you know it.”

Then they departed the place, not riding their horses but leading them, as the hill was so steep and brushy.

I was alone with Tom Chaney!

He sat across the fire from me, my pistol in his waistband and the Henry rifle in his lap. His face was a “brown study.” I stirred up the fire a little and arranged some glowing coals around one of the cans of hot water.

Chaney watched me. He said, “What are you doing?”

I said, “I am heating some water so that I may wash this black off my hands.”

“A little smut will not harm you.”

“Yes, that is true, or else you and your ‘chums’ would surely be dead. I know it will not harm me but I would rather have it off.”

“Don’t provoke me. You will find yourself in that pit.”

“Lucky Ned Pepper has warned you that if you molest me in any way he will not pay you. He means business too.”

“I fear he has no idea of paying me. I believe he has left me, knowing I am sure to be caught when I leave on foot.”

“He promised he would meet you at ‘The Old Place.’”

“Keep still. I must now think over my position and how I may improve it.”

“What about my position? At least you have not been abandoned by a man who was paid and pledged to protect you.”

“You little busybody! What does your kind know of hardship and affliction? Now keep still while I think.”

“Are you thinking about “The Old Place?’”

“No, I am not thinking about ‘The Old Place.’ Carroll Permalee or nobody else is coming up here with any horse. They are not going to ‘The Old Place.’ I am not so easily fooled as some people might think.”

I thought to ask him about the other gold piece, then checked myself, afraid that he might force me to give over the one I had recovered. I said, “What have you done with Papa’s mare?”

He gave no answer.

I said, “If you will let me go now I will keep silent as to your whereabouts for two days.”

“I tell you I can do better than that,” said he. “I can have your silence forever. I will not tell you again to hold your tongue.”

The water was not boiling but it had begun to steam a little and I picked up the can with a rag and flung it at him, then took to my feet in frantic flight. Though caught by surprise, he managed to shield his face with his arms. He yelped and gave immediate pursuit. My desperate plan was to reach the trees. Once there, I thought to evade him and finally lose him by darting this way and that in the brush.

It was not to be! Just as I came to the edge of the rock shelf, Chaney grabbed my coat from behind and pulled me up short. My thought was: I am certainly done for! Chaney was cursing me and he struck me on the head with the pistol barrel. The blow made me see stars and I concluded I was shot, not knowing the sensation caused by a bullet striking your head. My thoughts turned to my peaceful home in Arkansas, and my poor mother who would be laid low by the news. First her husband and now her oldest child, both gone in the space of two weeks and dispatched by the same bloody hand! That was the direction of my thoughts.

Suddenly I heard a familiar voice, and the words were hard with authority. “Hands up, Chelmsford! Move quickly! It is all up with you! Have a care with that pistol!”

It was LaBoeuf the Texan! He had come up the back way, on foot I supposed, as he was panting for breath. He was standing not thirty feet away with his wired-together rifle trained on Chaney.

Chaney let go of my coat and dropped the pistol.

“Everything is against me,” he said. I recovered the pistol.

LaBoeuf said, “Are you hurt, Mattie?”

“I have a painful knot on my head,” said I.

He said to Chaney, “I see you are bleeding.”

“It was this girl done it,” said he. “I am shot in the ribs and bleeding again. It hurts when I cough.”

I said, “Where is Rooster?”

LaBoeuf said, “He is down below watching the front door. Let us find a place where we can see. Move with care, Chelmsford!”

We proceeded to the northwest corner of the rock shelf, skirting around the pit which had figured in Chaney’s ugly threats. “Watch your step there,” I cautioned the Texan. “Tom Chaney says there are deadly snakes at the bottom having their winter sleep.”

From the far corner of the ledge we had a clear prospect. The timbered slope dropped off sharply below us and led to a meadow. This meadow, level and open, was quite high itself and at the other end there was a further descent leading down out of the Winding Stair Mountains.

No sooner had we taken up our vigil than we were rewarded with the sight of Lucky Ned Pepper and the other three bandits emerging from the trees into the meadow. There they mounted their horses and headed them west, away from us. They had hardly started their ride when a lone horseman came out of the brush at the western end of the field. The horse was walking and the rider took him out to the middle of the open space and stopped, so as to block the passage of the four desperadoes.

Yes, it was Rooster Cogburn! The bandits checked up and faced him from some seventy or eighty yards’ distance. Rooster had one of the navy revolvers in his left hand and he held the reins in his right hand. He said, “Where is the girl, Ned?”

Lucky Ned Pepper said, “She was in wonderful health when last I saw her! I cannot answer for her now!”

“You will answer for her now!” said Rooster. “Where is she?”

LaBoeuf stood up and cupped his hands and shouted down, “She is all right, Cogburn! I have Chelmsford as well! Make a run for it!” I confirmed the news by shouting, “I am fine, Rooster! We have Chaney! You must get away!”

The bandits turned to look up at us and no doubt they were surprised and not a little disconcerted by the interesting development. Rooster made no reply to us and gave no sign of leaving the place.

Lucky Ned Pepper said, “Well, Rooster, will you give us the road? We have business elsewhere!”

Rooster said, “Harold, I want you and your brother to stand clear! I have no interest in you today! Stand clear now and you will not be hurt!”

Harold Permalee’s answer was to crow like a rooster, and the “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” brought a hearty laugh from his brother Farrell.

Lucky Ned Pepper said, “What is your intention? Do you think one on four is a dogfall?”

Rooster said, “I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned, or see you hanged in Fort Smith at Judge Parker’s convenience! Which will you have?”

Lucky Ned Pepper laughed. He said, “I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man!”

Rooster said, “Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!” and he took the reins in his teeth and pulled the other saddle revolver and drove his spurs into the flanks of his strong horse Bo and charged directly at the bandits. It was a sight to see. He held the revolvers wide on either side of the head of his plunging steed. The four bandits accepted the challenge and they likewise pulled their arms and charged their ponies ahead.

It was some daring move on the part of the deputy marshal whose manliness and grit I had doubted. No grit? Rooster Cogburn? Not much!

LaBoeuf instinctively brought his rifle up, but then he relaxed it and did not fire. I pulled at his coat, saying, “Shoot them!” The Texan said, “They are too far and they are moving too fast.”

I believe the bandits began firing their weapons first, although the din and smoke was of such a sudden, general nature that I cannot be sure. I do know that the marshal rode for them in so determined and unwavering a course that the bandits broke their “line” ere he reached them and raced through them, his revolvers blazing, and he not aiming with the sights but only pointing the barrels and snapping his head from side to side to bring his good eye into play.

Harold Permalee was the first to go down. He flung his shotgun in the air and clutched at his neck and was thrown backward over the rump of his horse. The Original Greaser Bob rode wider than the others and he lay flat on his horse and escaped clear with his winnings. Farrell Permalee was hit and a moment later his horse went down with a broken leg and Farrell was dashed violently forward to his death.

We thought that Rooster had come through the ordeal with no injury, but in fact he had caught several shotgun pellets in his face and shoulders, and his horse Bo was mortally struck. When Rooster attempted to rein up with his teeth and turn to resume the attack, the big horse fell to the side and Rooster under him.

The field now remained to one rider and that was Lucky Ned Pepper. He wheeled his horse about. His left arm hung limp and useless, but he yet held a revolver in his right hand. He said, “Well, Rooster, I am shot to pieces!” Rooster had lost his big revolvers in the fall and he was struggling to pull his belt gun which was trapped to the ground under the weight of horse and rider.

Lucky Ned Pepper nudged his pony forward in a trot and he bore down on the helpless officer.

LaBoeuf quickly stirred beside me and assumed a sitting position with the Sharps rifle, his elbows locked against his knees. He took only a second to draw a bead and fire the powerful gun. The ball flew to its mark like a martin to his gourd and Lucky Ned Pepper fell dead in the saddle. The horse reared and the body of the bandit was thrown clear and the horse fled in panic. The distance covered by LaBoeuf’s wonderful shot at the moving rider was over six hundred yards. I am prepared to swear an affidavit to it.

“Hurrah!” I joyfully exclaimed. “Hurrah for the man from Texas! Some bully shot!” LaBoeuf was pleased with himself and he reloaded his rifle.

Now the prisoner has an advantage over his keeper in this respect, that he is always thinking of escape and watching for opportunities, while the keeper does not constantly think of keeping him. Once his man is subdued, so the guard believes, little else is needed but the presence and threat of superior force. He thinks of happy things and allows his mind to wander. It is only natural. Were it otherwise, the keeper would be a prisoner of the prisoner.

So it was that LaBoeuf (and I too) was distracted for a dangerous moment in appreciation of the timely rifle shot that saved Rooster Cogburn’s life. Tom Chaney, seizing the occasion, picked up a rock about the size of a new cooking pumpkin and broke LaBoeuf’s head with it.

The Texan fell over with a groan of agony. I screamed and hastened to my feet and backed away, bringing my pistol to bear once again on Tom Chaney, who was scrambling after the Sharps rifle. Would the old dragoon revolver fail me this time? I hoped it would not.

I hurriedly cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger. The charge exploded and sent a lead ball of justice, too long delayed, into the criminal head of Tom Chaney.

Yet I was not to taste the victory. The kick of the big pistol sent me reeling backward. I had forgotten about the pit behind me! Over the edge I went, then tumbling and bouncing against the irregular sides, and all the while I was grabbing wildly for something and finding nothing. I struck the bottom with a thump that fairly dazed me. The wind was knocked from my lungs and I lay still for a moment until I had regained my breath. I was addled and I had the fanciful notion that my spirit was floating out of my body, escaping through my mouth and nostrils.

I had thought myself to be lying down, but when I made to get up I found I was stuck upright in a small hole, the lower part of my body wedged in tight between mossy rocks. I was caught like a cork in a bottle!

My right arm was pinned against my side and I could not pull it free. When I tried to use my left hand to push myself out of the hole I saw with a shock that the forearm was bent in an unnatural attitude. The arm was broken! There was little pain in the arm, only a kind of “pins and needles” numbness. The movement in my fingers was weak and I had but little grasping power. I was reluctant to use the arm for leverage, fearing the pressure would worsen the fracture and bring on pain.

It was cold and dark down there, though not totally dark. A slender column of sunshine came down from above and ended in a small pool of light some three or four feet away on the stone floor of the cavern. I looked up at the column and could see floating particles of dust stirred up by my fall.

I saw on the rocks about me a few sticks and bits of paper and an old tobacco sack and splotches of grease where skillets had been emptied. I also saw the corner of a man’s blue cotton shirt, the rest of it being obscured by shadow. There were no snakes about. Thank goodness for that!

I summoned my strength and cried out, “Help! LaBoeuf! Can you hear me!” No word of reply came. I did not know if the Texan were alive or dead. All I heard was a low roaring of the wind above and dripping noises behind me and some faint “cheeps” and “squeaks.” I could not identify the nature of the squeaks or locate their origin.

I renewed my effort to break free but the vigorous movement made me slip a bit farther down in the mossy hole. My thought was: This will not do. I stopped maneuvering lest I drop right through the hole to what depths of blackness I could only imagine. My legs swung free below and my jeans were bunched up so that portions of bare leg were exposed. I felt something brush against one of my legs and I thought, Spider! I kicked and flailed my feet and then I stopped when my body settled downward another inch or so.

Now more squeaks, and it came to me that there were bats in the cavern below. Bats were making the noise and it had been a bat that attached himself to my leg. Yes, I had disturbed them. Their roosting place was below. This hole I now so effectively plugged was their opening to the outside.

I had no unreasonable fear of bats, knowing them for timid little creatures, yet I knew them too for carriers of the dread “Hydrophobia,” for which there was no specific. What would the bats do, come night and their time to fly, and they found their opening to the outer world closed off? Would they bite? If I struggled and kicked against them I would surely shake myself through the hole. But I knew I had not the will to remain motionless and let them bite.

Night! Was I to be here then till night? I must keep my head and guard against such thoughts. What of LaBoeuf? And what had become of Rooster Cogburn? He had not appeared to be badly hurt in the fall of his horse. But how would he know I was down here? I did not like my situation.

I thought to set fire to bits of cloth for a signal of smoke but the idea was useless because I had no matches. Surely someone would come. Perhaps Captain Finch. The news of the gun fight must get out and bring a party to investigate. Yes, the posse of marshals. The thing was to hold tight. Help was sure to come. At least there were no snakes. I settled on this course: I would give cries for help every five minutes or as near on that interval as I could guess it to be.

I called out at once and was again mocked by the echo of my own voice and by the wind and the dripping of the cave water and the squeaking of the bats. I told numbers to measure the time. It occupied my mind and gave me a sense of purpose and method.

I had not counted far when my body slipped down appreciably and with panic in my breast I realized that the moss which gripped me in a tight seal was tearing loose. I looked about for something to hold to, broken arm or not, but my hand found only slick and featureless planes of rock. I was going through. It was a matter now of time.

Another lurch down, to the level of my right elbow. That bony knob served as a momentary check but I could feel the moss giving way against it. A wedge! That was what I needed. Something to stuff in the hole with me to make the cork fit more snugly. Or a long stick to pass under my arm.

I cast my eyes about for something suitable. The few sticks lying about were none of them long enough or stout enough for my purpose. If only I could reach the blue shirt! It would be just the thing for packing. I broke one stick scratching and pulling at the shirttail. With the second one I managed to bring it within reach of my fingertips. Weakened as my hand was, I got a purchase on the cloth with thumb and finger and pulled it out of the dark. It was unexpectedly heavy. Something was attached to it.

Suddenly I jerked my hand away as though from a hot stove. The something was the corpse of a man! Or more properly, a skeleton. He was wearing the shirt. I did nothing for a minute, so frightful and astonishing was the discovery. I could see a good part of the remains, the head with patches of bright orange hair showing under a piece of rotted black hat, one shirtsleeved arm and that portion of the trunk from about the waist upwards. The shirt was buttoned in two or three places near the neck.

I soon recovered my wits. I am falling. I need that shirt. These thoughts bore upon me with urgency. I had no stomach for the task ahead but there was nothing else to be done in my desperate circumstances. My plan was to give the shirt a smart jerk in hopes of tearing it free from the skeleton. I will have that shirt!

Thus I took hold of the garment again and snatched it toward me with such sharp force as I could muster. My arm seized up with a stab of pain and I let go. After a little tingling the pain subsided and gave way to a dull and tolerable ache. I examined the result of my effort. The buttons had torn free and now the body was within reach. The shirt itself remained clothed about the shoulders and arm bones in a careless fashion. I saw too that the maneuver had exposed the poor man’s rib cage.

One more pull and I would have the body close enough so that I could work the shirt free. As I made ready for the job my eyes were attracted to something—movement?—within the cavity formed by the curving gray ribs. I leaned over for a closer look. Snakes! A ball of snakes! I flung myself back but of course there was no real retreat for me, imprisoned as I was in the mossy trap.

I cannot accurately guess the number of rattlesnakes in the ball, as some were big, bigger than my arm, and others small, ranging down to the size of lead pencils, but I believe there were not fewer than forty. With trembling heart I looked on as they writhed sluggishly about in the man’s chest. I had disturbed their sleep in their curious winter quarters and now, more or less conscious, they had begun to move and detach themselves from the tangle, falling this way and that.

This, thought I, is a pretty fix. I desperately needed the shirt but I did not wish to “mess” further with the snakes in order to have it. Even while I considered these things I was settling and being drawn down to. . . what? Perhaps a black and bottomless pool of water where the fish were white and had no eyes to see.

I wondered if the snakes could bite in their present lethargic state. I thought they could not see well, if at all, but I observed too that the light and warmth of the sun had an invigorating effect on them. We kept two speckled king snakes in our corn crib to eat rats and I was not afraid of them, Saul and Little David, but I really knew nothing about snakes. Moccasins and rattlers were to be avoided if possible and killed if there was a chopping hoe handy. That was all I knew about poisonous snakes.

The ache in my broken arm grew worse. I felt some more of the binding moss give way against my right arm and at the same time I saw that some of the snakes were crawling out through the man’s ribs. Lord help me!

I set my teeth and took hold of the bony hand that stuck forth from the blue shirtsleeve. I gave a yank and pulled the man’s arm clean away from the shoulder. A terrible thing to do, you say, but you will see that I now had something to work with.

I studied the arm. Bits of cartilage held it together at the elbow joint. With some twisting I managed to separate it at that place. I took the long bone of the upper arm and secured it under my armpit to serve as a cross-member. This would keep me from plunging through the hole should I reach that point in my descent. It was quite a long bone and, I hoped, a strong one. I was grateful to the poor man for being tall.

What I had left now was the lower part, the two bones of the forearm, and the hand and wrist, all of a piece. I grasped it at the elbow and proceeded to use it as a flail to keep the snakes at bay. “Here, get away!” said I, slapping at them with the bony hand. “Get back, you!” This was well enough except that I perceived the agitation only caused them to be more active. In trying to keep them away, I was at the same time stirring them up! They moved very slowly but there were so many I could not keep track of them all.

Each blow I struck brought burning pain to my arm and you can imagine these blows were not hard enough to kill the snakes. That was not my idea. My idea was to keep them back and prevent them from getting behind me. My striking range from left to right was something short of 180 degrees and I knew if the rattlers got behind me I would be in a fine “pickle.”

I heard noises above. A shower of sand and pebbles came cascading down. “Help!” I cried out. “I am down here! I need help!” My thought was: Thank God. Someone has come. Soon I will be out of this hellish place. I saw drops of something spattering on a rock in front of me. It was blood. “Hurry up!” I yelled. “There are snakes and skeletons down here!”

A man’s voice called down, saying, “I warrant there will be another one before spring! A little spindly one!”

It was the voice of Tom Chaney! I had not yet made a good job of killing him! I supposed he was leaning over the edge and the blood was falling from his wounded head.

“How do you like it?” he taunted.

“Throw me a rope, Tom! You cannot be mean enough to leave me!”

“You say you don’t like it?”

Then I heard a shout and the sounds of a scuffle and a dreadful crunch, which was Rooster Cogburn’s rifle stock smashing the wounded head of Tom Chaney. There followed a furious rush of rocks and dust. The light was blocked off and I made out a large object hurtling down toward me. It was the body of Tom Chaney. I leaned back as far as I could to avoid being struck, and at that it was a near thing.

He fell directly upon the skeleton, crushing the bones and filling my face and eyes with dirt and scattering the puzzled rattlesnakes every which way. They were all about me and I commenced striking at them with such abandon that my body dropped free through the hole. Gone!

No! Checked short! I was shakily suspended in space by the bone under my armpit. Bats flew up past my face and the ones below were carrying on like a treefull of sparrows at sundown. Only my head and my left arm and shoulder now remained above the hole. I hung at an uncomfortable angle. The bone was bowed under my weight and I prayed it would hold. My left arm was cramped and fully occupied in holding to it and I had not the use of the hand in fending off the snakes.

“Help!” I called. “I need help!”

Rooster’s voice came booming down, saying, “Are you all right?”

“No! I am in a bad way! Hurry up!”

“I am pitching down a rope! Fasten it under your arms and tie it with a good knot!”

“I cannot manage a rope! You will have to come down and help me! Hurry up, I am falling! There are snakes all about my head!”

“Hold on! Hold on!” came another voice. It was LaBoeuf. The Texan had survived the blow. The officers were both safe.

I watched as two rattlers struck and sunk their sharp teeth into Tom Chaney’s face and neck. The body was lifeless and made no protest. My thought was: Those scoundrels can bite in December and right there is the proof of it! One of the smaller snakes approached my hand and rubbed his nose against it. I moved my hand a little and the snake moved to it and touched his nose to the flesh again. He moved a bit more and commenced to rub the underside of his jaw on top of my hand.

From the corner of my eye I saw another snake on my left shoulder. He was motionless and limp. I could not tell if he was dead or merely asleep. Whatever the case, I did not want him there and I began to swing my body gently from side to side on the bone axle, The movement caused the serpent to roll over with his white belly up and I gave my shoulder a shake and he fell into the darkness below.

I felt a sting and I saw the little snake pulling his head away from my hand, an amber drop of venom on his mouth. He had bitten me. The hand was already well along to being dead numb from the cramped position and I hardly felt it. It was on the order of a horsefly bite, I counted myself lucky the snake was small. That was how much I knew of natural history. People who know tell me the younger snakes carry the more potent poison, and that it weakens with age. I believe what they say.

Now here came Rooster with a rope looped around his waist and his feet against the sides of the pit, descending in great violent leaps and sending another shower of rocks and dust down on me. He landed with a heavy bump and then it seemed he was doing everything at once. He grasped the collar of my coat and shirt behind my neck and heaved me up from the hole with one hand, at the same time kicking at snakes and shooting them with his belt revolver. The noise was deafening and made my head ache.

My legs were wobbly. I could hardly stand.

Rooster said, “Can you hold to my neck?”

I said, “Yes, I will try.” There were two dark red holes in his face with dried rivulets of blood under them where shotgun pellets had struck him.

He stooped down and I wrapped my right arm around his neck and lay against his back. He tried to climb the rope hand over hand with his feet against the sides of the pit but he made only about three pulls and had to drop back down. Our combined weight was too much for him. His right shoulder was torn from a bullet too, although I did not know it at the time.

“Stay behind me!” he said, kicking and stomping the snakes while he reloaded his pistol. A big grandfather snake coiled himself around Rooster’s boot and got his head shot off for his boldness.

Rooster said, “Do you think you can climb the rope?”

“My arm is broken,” said I. “And I am bit on the hand.”

He looked at the hand and pulled his dirk knife and cut the place to scarify it. He squeezed blood from it and took some smoking tobacco and hurriedly chewed it into a cud and rubbed it over the wound to draw the poison.

Then he harnessed the rope tightly under my arms. He shouted up to the Texan, saying, “Take the rope, LaBoeuf! Mattie is hurt! I want you to pull her up in easy stages! Can you hear me?”

LaBoeuf replied, “I will do what I can!”

The rope grew taut and lifted me to my toes. “Pull!” shouted Rooster. “The girl is snake-bit, man! Pull!” But LaBoeuf could not do it, weakened as he was by his bad arm and broken head. “It’s no use!” he said. “I will try the horse!”

In a matter of minutes he had fastened the rope to a pony. “I am ready!” the Texan called down to us. “Take a good hold!”

“Go!” said Rooster.

He had looped the rope about his hips and once around his waist. He held me with the other arm. We were jerked from our feet. Now there was power at the other end! We went up in bounds. Rooster worked to keep us clear of the rough sides with his feet. We were skinned up a little.

Sunlight and blue sky! I was so weak that I lay upon the ground and could not speak. I blinked my eyes to accommodate them to the brightness and I saw that LaBoeuf was sitting with his bloody head in his hands and gasping from his labors in driving the horse. Then I saw the horse. It was Little Blackie! The scrub pony had saved us! My thought was: The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner.

Rooster tied the cud of tobacco on top of my hand with a rag. He said, “Can you walk?”

“Yes, I think so,” said I. He led me toward the horse and when I had walked a few steps I was overcome with nausea and I dropped to my knees. When the sickness had passed, Rooster helped me along and placed me in the saddle astride Little Blackie. He bound my feet to the stirrups and with another length of rope he tied my waist to the saddle, front and back. Then he mounted behind me.

He said to LaBoeuf, “I will send help as soon as I can. Don’t wander off.”

I said, “We are not leaving him?”

Rooster said, “I must get you to a doctor, sis, or you are not going to make it.” He said to LaBoeuf as an afterthought, “I am in your debt for that shot, pard.”

The Texan said nothing and we left him there holding his head. I expect he was feeling pretty bad. Rooster spurred Blackie away and the faithful pony stumbled and skidded down the steep and brushy hill where prudent horsemen led their mounts. The descent was dangerous and particularly so with such a heavy burden as Blackie was carrying. There was no way to dodge all the limbs. Rooster lost his hat and never looked back.

We galloped across the meadow where the smoky duel had lately occurred. My eyes were congested from nausea and through a tearful haze I saw the dead horses and the bodies of the bandits. The pain in my arm became intense and I commenced to cry and the tears were blown back in streams around my cheeks. Once down from the mountains we headed north, and I guessed we were aiming for Fort Smith. Despite the load, Blackie held his head high and ran like the wind, perhaps sensing the urgency of the mission. Rooster spurred and whipped him without let. I soon passed away in a faint.

When I regained my senses, I realized we had slowed. Heaving and choking for breath, Blackie was yet giving us all he had. I cannot say how many miles we had ridden full out. Poor lathered beast! Rooster whipped and whipped.

“Stop!” I said. “We must stop! He is played out!” Rooster paid me no heed. Blackie was all in and as he stumbled and made to stop, Rooster took his dirk knife and cut a brutal slash on the pony’s withers. “Stop it! Stop it!” I cried. Little Blackie squealed and burst forth in a run under the stimulation of the pain. I wrestled for the reins but Rooster slapped my hands away. I was crying and yelling. When Blackie slowed again, Rooster took salt from his pocket and rubbed the wound with it and the pony leaped forward as before. In a very few minutes this torture was mercifully ended. Blackie fell to the ground and died, his brave heart burst and mine broken. There never lived a nobler pony.

No sooner were we down than Rooster was cutting me free. He ordered me to climb upon his back. I held fast around his neck with my right arm and he supported my legs with his arms. Now Rooster himself began to run, or jog as it were under the load, and his breath came hard. Once more I lost my senses and the next I knew I was being carried in his arms and sweat drops from his brow and mustache were falling on my neck.

I have no recollection of the stop at the Poteau River where Rooster commandeered a wagon and a team of mules from a party of hunters at gunpoint. I do not mean to suggest the hunters were reluctant to lend their team in such an emergency but Rooster was impatient of explanation and he simply took the rig. Farther along the river we called at the home of a wealthy Indian farmer named Cullen. He provided us with a buggy and a fast span of matched horses, and he also sent one of his sons along mounted on a white pony to lead the way.

Night had fallen when we reached Fort Smith. We rode into town in a drizzle of cold rain. I remember being carried into the home of Dr. J. R. Medill, with Dr. Medill holding his hat over a coal oil lamp to keep the rain off the mantle.

I was in a stupor for days. The broken bone was set and an open splint was fixed along my forearm. My hand swelled and turned black, and then my wrist. On the third day Dr. Medill gave me a sizable dose of morphine and amputated the arm just above the elbow with a little surgical saw. My mother and Lawyer Daggett sat at my side while this work was done. I very much admired my mother for sitting there and not flinching, as she was of a delicate temperament. She held my right hand and wept.

I remained in the doctor’s home for something over a week after the operation. Rooster called on me twice but I was so sick and “dopey” that I made poor company. He had patches on his face where Dr. Medill had removed the shotgun balls. He told me the posse of marshals had found LaBoeuf, and that the officer had refused to leave the place until he had recovered the body of Tom Chaney. None of the marshals was anxious to go down in the pit, so LaBoeuf had them lower him on a rope. He did the job, though his vision was somewhat confounded from the blow on his head. At McAlester’s he was given such treatment as was available for the depression on his head, and from there he left for Texas with the corpse of the man on whose trail he had camped for so long.

I went home on a varnish train, lying flat on my back on a stretcher that was placed in the aisle of a coach. As I say, I was quite sick and it was not until I had been home for a few days that I fully recovered my faculties. It came to me that I had not paid Rooster the balance of his money. I wrote a check for seventy-five dollars and put it in an envelope and asked Lawyer Daggett to mail it to Rooster in care of the marshal’s office.

Lawyer Daggett interviewed me about it and in the course of our conversation I learned something disturbing. It was this. The lawyer had blamed Rooster for taking me on the search for Tom Chaney and had roundly cursed him and threatened to prosecute him in a court action. I was upset on hearing it. I told Lawyer Daggett that Rooster was in no way to blame, and was rather to be praised and commended for his grit. He had certainly saved my life.

Whatever his adversaries, the railroads and steamboat companies, may have thought, Lawyer Daggett was a gentleman, and on hearing the straight of the matter he was embarrassed by his actions. He said he still considered the deputy marshal had acted with poor judgment, but in the circumstances was deserving an apology. He went to Fort Smith and personally delivered the seventy-five dollars owing to him, and then presented him with a two-hundred-dollar check of his own and asked him to accept his apology for the hard and unfair words he had spoken.

I wrote Rooster a letter and invited him to visit us. He replied with a short note that looked like one of his “vouchers,” saying he would try to stop by when next he took prisoners to Little Rock. I concluded he would not come and I made plans to go there when I had the use of my legs. I was very curious to know how much he had realized, if anything, in the way of rewards for his destruction of Lucky Ned Pepper’s robber band, and whether he had received news of LaBoeuf. I will say here that Judy was never recovered, nor was the second California gold piece. I kept the other one for years, until our house burned. We found no trace of it in the ashes.

But I never got the chance to visit him. Not three weeks after we had returned from the Winding Stair Mountains, Rooster found himself in trouble over a gun duel he fought in Fort Gibson, Cherokee Nation. He shot and killed Odus Wharton in the duel. Of course Wharton was a convicted murderer and a fugitive from the gallows but there was a stir about the manner of the shooting. Rooster shot two other men that were with Wharton and killed one of them. They must have been trash or they would not have been in the company of the “thug,” but they were not wanted by the law at that time and Rooster was criticized. He had many enemies. Pressure was brought and Rooster made to surrender his Federal badge. We knew nothing of it until it was over and Rooster gone.

He took his cat General Price and the widow Potter and her six children and went to San Antonio, Texas, where he found work as a range detective for a stockmen’s association. He did not marry the woman in Fort Smith and I supposed they waited until they reached “the Alamo City.”

From time to time I got bits of news about him from Chen Lee, who did not hear directly but only by rumor. Twice I wrote the stockmen’s association in San Antonio. The letters were not returned but neither were they answered. When next I heard, Rooster had gone into the cattle business himself in a small way. Then in the early 1890s I learned he had abandoned the Potter woman and her brood and had gone north to Wyoming with a reckless character named Tom Smith where they were hired by stock owners to terrorize thieves and people called nesters and grangers. It was a sorry business, I am told, and I fear Rooster did himself no credit there in what they called the “Johnson County War.”

In late May of 1903 Little Frank sent me a cutting from The Commercial Appeal in Memphis. It was an advertisement for the Cole Younger and Frank James “Wild West” show that was coming to play in the Memphis Chicks’ baseball park. Down in the smaller type at the bottom of the notice Little Frank had circled the following:

HE RODE WITH QUANTRILL!

HE RODE FOR PARKER!

Scourge of Territorial outlaws and Texas cattle thieves for 25 years!

“Rooster” Cogburn will amaze you with his skill and dash with the six-shooter and repeating rifle! Don’t leave the ladies and little ones behind! Spectators can watch this unique exhibition in perfect safety!

So he was coming to Memphis. Little Frank had teased me and chaffed me over the years about Rooster, making out that he was my secret “sweetheart.” By sending this notice he was having sport with me, as he thought. He had penciled a note on the cutting that said, “Skill and dash! It’s not too late, Mattie!” Little Frank loves fun at the other fellow’s expense and the more he thinks it tells on you the better he loves it. We have always liked jokes in our family and I think they are all right in their place. Victoria likes a good joke herself, so far as she can understand one. I have never held it against either one of them for leaving me at home to look after Mama, and they know it, for I have told them.

I rode the train to Memphis by way of Little Rock and had no trouble getting the conductors to honor my Rock Island pass. It belonged to a freight agent and I was holding it against a small loan. I had thought to put up at a hotel instead of paying an immediate call on Little Frank as I did not wish to hear his chaff before I had seen Rooster. I speculated on whether the marshall would recognize me. My thought was: A quarter of a century is a long time!

As things turned out, I did not go to a hotel. When my train reached “the Bluff City” I saw that the show train was on a siding there at the depot. I left my bag in the station and set off walking beside the circus coaches through crowds of horses and Indians and men dressed as cow-boys and soldiers.

I found Cole Younger and Frank James sitting in a Pullman car in their shirtsleeves. They were drinking Coca-Colas and fanning themselves. They were old men. I supposed Rooster must have aged a good deal too. These old-timers had all fought together in the border strife under Quantrill’s black standard, and afterward led dangerous lives, and now this was all they were fit for, to show themselves to the public like strange wild beasts of the jungle.

They claim Younger carried fourteen bullets about in various portions of his flesh. He was a stout, florid man with a pleasant manner and he rose to greet me. The waxy James remained in his seat and did not speak or remove his hat. Younger told me that Rooster had passed away a few days before while the show was at Jonesboro, Arkansas. He had been in failing health for some months, suffering from a disorder he called “night hoss,” and the heat of the early summer had been too much for him. Younger reckoned his age at sixty-eight years. There was no one to claim him and they had buried him in the Confederate cemetery in Memphis, though his home was out of Osceola, Missouri.

Younger spoke fondly of him. “We had some lively times,” was one thing he said. I thanked the courteous old outlaw for his help and said to James, “Keep your seat, trash!” and took my leave. They think now it was Frank James who shot the bank officer in Northfield. As far as I know that scoundrel never spent a night in jail, and there was Cole Younger locked away twenty-five years in the Minnesota pen.

I did not stay for the show as I guessed it would be dusty and silly like all circuses. People grumbled about it when it was over, saying James did nothing more than wave his hat to the crowd, and that Younger did even less, it being a condition of his parole that he not exhibit himself. Little Frank took his two boys to see it and they enjoyed the horses.

I had Rooster’s body removed to Dardanelle on the train. The railroads do not like to carry disinterred bodies in the summertime but I got around paying the premium rate by having my correspondent bank in Memphis work the deed from that end through a grocery wholesaler that did a volume freight business. He was reburied in our family plot. Rooster had a little C.S.A. headstone coming to him but it was so small that I put up another one beside it, a sixty-five-dollar slab of Batesville marble inscribed

REUBEN COGBURN

1835-1903

A RESOLUTE OFFICER OF PARKER’S COURT

People here in Dardanelle and Russellville said, well, she hardly knew the man but it is just like a cranky old maid to do a “stunt” like that. I know what they said even if they would not say it to my face. People love to talk. They love to slander you if you have any substance. They say I love nothing but money and the Presbyterian Church and that is why I never married. They think everybody is dying to get married. It is true that I love my church and my bank. What is wrong with that? I will tell you a secret. Those same people talk mighty nice when they come in to get a crop loan or beg a mortgage extension! I never had the time to get married but it is nobody’s business if I am married or not married. I care nothing for what they say. I would marry an ugly baboon if I wanted to and make him cashier. I never had the time to fool with it. A woman with brains and a frank tongue and one sleeve pinned up and an invalid mother to care for is at some disadvantage, although I will say I could have had two or three old untidy men around here who had their eyes fastened on my bank. No, thank you! It might surprise you to know their names.

I heard nothing more of the Texas officer, LaBoeuf. If he is yet alive and should happen to read these pages, I will be pleased to hear from him. I judge he is in his seventies now, and nearer eighty than seventy. I expect some of the starch has gone out of that “cowlick.” Time just gets away from us. This ends my true account of how I avenged Frank Ross’s blood over in the Choctaw Nation when snow was on the ground.