True Grit

SIX

Dinnertime came and went and on we rode. I was hungry and aching but I kept my peace for I knew the both of them were waiting for me to complain or say something that would make me out a “tenderfoot.” I was determined not to give them anything to chaff me about. Some large wet flakes of snow began to fall, then changed to soft drizzling rain, then stopped altogether, and the sun came out. We turned left off the Fort Gibson Road and headed south, back down toward the Arkansas River. I say “down.” South is not “down” any more than north is “up.” I have seen maps carried by emigrants going to California that showed west at the top and east at the bottom.

Our stopping place was a store on the riverbank. Behind it there was a small ferry boat.

We dismounted and tied up our horses. My legs were tingling and weak and I tottered a little as I walked. Nothing can take the starch out of you like a long ride on horseback.

A black mule was tied up to the porch of the store. He had a cotton rope around his neck right under his jaw. The sun had caused the wet rope to draw up tight and the mule was gasping and choking for breath. The more he tugged the worse he made it. Two wicked boys were sitting on the edge of the porch laughing at the mule’s discomfort. One was white and the other was an Indian. They were about seventeen years of age.

Rooster cut the rope with his dirk knife and the mule breathed easy again. The grateful beast wandered off shaking his head about. A cypress stump served for a step up to the porch. Rooster went up first and walked over to the two boys and kicked them off into the mud with the flat at his boot. “Call that sport, do you?” said he. They were two mighty surprised boys.

The storekeeper was a man named Bagby with an Indian wife. They had already had dinner but the woman warmed up some catfish for us that she had left over. LaBoeuf and I sat at a table near the stove and ate while Rooster had a conference with the man Bagby at the back of the store.

The Indian woman spoke good English and I learned to my surprise that she too was a Presbyterian. She had been schooled by a missionary. What preachers we had in those days! Truly they took the word into “the highways and hedges.” Mrs. Bagby was not a Cumberland Presbyterian but a member of the U.S. or Southern Presbyterian Church. I too am now a member of the Southern Church. I say nothing against the Cumberlands. They broke with the Presbyterian Church because they did not believe a preacher needed a lot of formal education. That is all right but they are not sound on Election. They do not fully accept it. I confess it is a hard doctrine, running contrary to our earthly ideas of fair play, but I can see no way around it. Read I Corinthians 6: 13 and II Timothy 1: 9, 10. Also I Peter 1: 2, 19, 20 and Romans 11: 7. There you have it. It was good for Paul and Silas and it is good enough for me. It is good enough for you too.

Rooster finished his parley and joined us in our fish dinner. Mrs. Bagby wrapped up some gingerbread for me to take along. When we went back out on the porch Rooster kicked the two boys into the mud again.

He said, “Where is Virgil?”

The white boy said, “He and Mr. Simmons is off down in the bottoms looking for strays.”

“Who is running the ferry?”

“Me and Johnny.”

“You don’t look like you have sense enough to run a boat. Either one of you.”

“We know how to run it.”

“Then let us get to it.”

“Mr. Simmons will want to know who cut his mule loose,” said the boy.

“Tell him it was Mr. James, a bank examiner of Clay County, Missouri,” said Rooster. “Can you remember the name?”

“Yes sir.”

We led our horses down to the water’s edge. The boat or raft was a rickety, waterlogged affair and the horses nickered and balked when we tried to make them go aboard. I did not much blame them. LaBoeuf had to blindfold his shaggy pony. There just was room for all of us.

Before casting off, the white boy said, “You said James?”

“That is the name,” said Rooster.

“The James boys are said to be slight men.”

“One of them has grown fat,” said Rooster.

“I don’t believe you are Jesse or Frank James either one.”

“The mule will not range far,” said Rooster. “See that you mend your ways, boy, or I will come back some dark night and cut off your head and let the crows peck your eyeballs out. Now you and Admiral Semmes get us across this river and be damned quick about it.”

A ghostly fog lay on top of the water and it enveloped us, about to the waist of a man, as we pushed off. Mean and backward though they were, the two boys handled the boat with considerable art. They pulled and guided us along on a heavy rope that was tied fast to trees on either bank. We swung across in a looping downstream curve with the current doing most of the work. We got our feet wet and I was happy to get off the thing.

The road we picked up on the south bank was little more than a pig trail. The brush arched over and closed in on us at the top and we were slapped and stung with limbs. I was riding last and I believe I got the worst of it.

Here is what Rooster learned from the man Bagby: Lucky Ned Pepper had been seen three days earlier at McAlester’s store on the M. K. & T. Railroad tracks. His intentions were not known. He went there from time to time to pay attention to a lewd woman. A robber called Haze and a Mexican had been seen in his company. And that was all the man knew.

Rooster said we would be better off if we could catch the robber band before they left the neighborhood of McAlester’s and returned to their hiding place in the fastness of the Winding Stair Mountains.

LaBoeuf said, “How far is it to McAlester’s?”

“A good sixty miles,” said Rooster. “We will make another fifteen miles today and get an early start tomorrow.”

I groaned and made a face at the thought of riding another fifteen miles that day and Rooster turned and caught me. “How do you like this coon hunt?” said he.

“Do not be looking around for me,” said I. “I will be right here.”

LaBoeuf said, “But Chelmsford was not with him?”

Rooster said, “He was not seen at McAlester’s with him. It is certain he was with him on the mail hack job. He will be around somewhere near or I miss my guess. The way Ned cuts his winnings I know the boy did not realize enough on that job to travel far.”

We made a camp that night on the crest of a hill where the ground was not so soggy. It was a very dark night. The clouds were low and heavy and neither the moon or stars could be seen. Rooster gave me a canvas bucket and sent me down the hill about two hundred yards for water. I carried my gun along. I had no lantern and I stumbled and fell with the first bucket before I got far and had to retrace my steps and get another. LaBoeuf unsaddled the horses and fed them from nosebags. On the second trip I had to stop and rest about three times coming up the hill. I was stiff and tired and sore. I had the gun in one hand but it was not enough to balance the weight of the heavy bucket which pulled me sideways as I walked.

Rooster was squatting down building a fire and he watched me. He said, “You look like a hog on ice.”

I said, “I am not going down there again. If you want any more water you will have to fetch it yourself.”

“Everyone in my party must do his job.”

“Anyhow, it tastes like iron.”

LaBoeuf was rubbing down his shaggy pony. He said, “You are lucky to be traveling in a place where a spring is so handy. In my country you can ride for days and see no ground water. I have lapped filthy water from a hoofprint and was glad to have it. You don’t know what discomfort is until you have nearly perished for water.”

Rooster said, “If I ever meet one of you Texas waddies that says he never drank from a horse track I think I will shake his hand and give him a Daniel Webster cigar.”

“Then you don’t believe it?” asked LaBoeuf.

“I believed it the first twenty-five times I heard it.”

“Maybe he did drink from one,” said I. “He is a Texas Ranger.”

“Is that what he is?” said Rooster. “Well now, I can believe that.”

LaBoeuf said, “You are getting ready to show your ignorance now, Cogburn. I don’t mind a little personal chaffing but I won’t hear anything against the Ranger troop from a man like you.”

“The Ranger troop!” said Rooster, with some contempt. “I tell you what you do. You go tell John Wesley Hardin about the Ranger troop. Don’t tell me and sis.”

“Anyhow, we know what we are about. That is more than I can say for you political marshals.”

Rooster said, “How long have you boys been mounted on sheep down there?”

LaBoeuf stopped rubbing his shaggy pony. He said, “This horse will be galloping when that big American stud of yours is winded and collapsed. You cannot judge by looks. The most villainous-looking pony is often your gamest performer. What would you guess this pony cost me?”

Rooster said, “If there is anything in what you say I would guess about a thousand dollars.”

“You will have your joke, but he cost me a hundred and ten dollars,” said LaBoeuf. “I would not sell him for that. It is hard to get in the Rangers if you do not own a hundred-dollar horse.”

Rooster set about preparing our supper. Here is what he brought along for “grub”: a sack of salt and a sack of red pepper and a sack of taffy—all this in his jacket pockets—and then some ground coffee beans and a big slab of salt pork and one hundred and seventy corn dodgers. I could scarcely credit it. The “corn dodgers” were balls of what I would call hot-water cornbread. Rooster said the woman who prepared them thought the order was for a wagon party of marshals.

“Well,” said he, “When they get too hard to eat plain we can make mush from them and what we have left we can give to the stock.”

He made some coffee in a can and fried some pork. Then he sliced up some of the dodgers and fried the pieces in grease. Fried bread! That was a new dish to me. He and LaBoeuf made fast work of about a pound of pork and a dozen dodgers. I ate some of my bacon sandwiches and a piece of gingerbread and drank the rusty-tasting water. We had a blazing fire and the wet wood crackled fiercely and sent off showers of sparks. It was cheerful and heartening against the gloomy night.

LaBoeuf said he was not accustomed to such a big fire, that in Texas they frequently had little more than a fire of twigs or buffalo chips with which to warm up their beans. He asked Rooster if it was wise to make our presence known in unsettled country with a big fire. He said it was Ranger policy not to sleep in the same place as where they had cooked their supper. Rooster said nothing and threw more limbs on the fire.

I said, “Would you two like to hear the story of ‘The Midnight Caller’? One of you will have to be ‘The Caller.’ I will tell you what to say. I will do all the other parts myself.”

But they were not interested in hearing ghost stories and I put my slicker on the ground as close to the fire as I dared and proceeded to make my bed with the blankets. My feet were so swollen from the ride that my boots were hard to pull off. Rooster and LaBoeuf drank some whiskey but it did not make them sociable and they sat there without talking. Soon they got out their bed rolls.

Rooster had a nice buffalo robe for a ground sheet. It looked warm and comfortable and I envied him for it. He took a horsehair lariat from his saddle and arranged it in a loop around his bed.

LaBoeuf watched him and grinned. He said, “That is a piece of foolishness. All the snakes are asleep this time of year.”

“They have been known to wake up,” said Rooster.

I said, “Let me have a rope too. I am not fond of snakes.”

“A snake would not bother with you,” said Rooster. “You are too little and bony.”

He put an oak log in the fire and banked coals and ashes against it and turned in for the night. Both the officers snored and one of them made a wet mouth noise along with it. It was disgusting. Exhausted as I was, I had trouble falling asleep. I was warm enough but there were roots and rocks under me and I moved this way and that trying to improve my situation. I was sore and the movement was painful. I finally despaired of ever getting fixed right. I said my prayers but did not mention my discomfort. This trip was my own doing.

When I awoke there were snowflakes on my eyes. Big moist flakes were sifting down through the trees. There was a light covering of white on the ground. It was not quite daylight but Rooster was already up, boiling coffee and frying meat. LaBoeuf was attending to the horses and he had them saddled. I wanted some hot food so I passed up the biscuits and ate some of the salt meat and fried bread. I shared my cheese with the officers. My hands and face smelled of smoke.

Rooster hurried us along in breaking camp. He was concerned about the snow. “If this keeps up we will want shelter tonight,” he said. LaBoeuf had already fed the stock but I took one of the corn dodgers and gave it to Little Blackie to see if he would eat it. He relished it and I gave him another. Rooster said horses particularly liked the salt that was in them. He directed me to wear my slicker.

Sunrise was only a pale yellow glow through the overcast but such as it was it found us mounted and moving once again. The snow came thicker and the flakes grew bigger, as big as goose feathers, and they were not falling down like rain but rather flying dead level into our faces. In the space of four hours it collected on the ground to a depth of six or seven inches.

Out in the open places the trail was hard to follow and we stopped often so that Rooster could get his bearings. This was a hard job because the ground told him nothing and he could not see distant landmarks. Indeed at times we could see only a few feet in any direction. His spyglass was useless. We came across no people and no houses. Our progress was very slow.

There was no great question of getting lost because Rooster had a compass and as long as we kept a southwesterly course we would sooner or later strike the Texas Road and the M. K. & T. Railroad tracks. But it was inconvenient not being able to keep the regular trail, and with the snow the horses ran the danger of stepping into holes.

Along about noon we stopped at a stream on the lee side of a mountain to water the horses. There we found some small relief from the wind and snow. I believe these were the San Bois Mountains. I passed the balance of my cheese around and Rooster shared his candy. With that we made our dinner. While we were stretching our legs at that place we heard some flapping noises down the stream and LaBoeuf went into the woods to investigate. He found a flock of turkeys roosting in a tree and shot one of them with his Sharps rifle. The bird was considerably ripped up. It was a hen weighing about seven pounds. LaBoeuf gutted it and cut its head off and tied it to his saddle.

Rooster allowed that we could not now reach McAlester’s store before dark and that our best course was to bear west for a “dugout” that some squatter had built not far from the Texas Road. No one occupied the place, he said, and we could find shelter there for the night. Tomorrow we could make our way south on the Texas Road which was broad and packed clear and hard from cattle herds and freighter wagons. There would be little risk of crippling a horse on that highway.

After our rest we departed in single file with Rooster’s big horse breaking the trail. Little Blackie had no need for my guidance and I looped the ends of the reins around the saddle horn and withdrew my cold hands into the sleeves of my many coats. We surprised a herd of deer feeding off the bark of saplings and LaBoeuf went for his rifle again but they had flown before he could get it unlimbered.

By and by the snow let up and yet our progress was still limited to a walk. It was good dark when we came to the “dugout.” We had a little light from a moon that was in and out of the clouds.

The dugout stood at the narrow end of a V-shaped hollow or valley. I had never before seen such a dwelling. It was small, only about ten feet by twenty feet, and half of it was sunk back into a clay bank, like a cave. The part that was sticking out was made of poles and sod and the roof was also of sod, supported by a ridge pole in the center. A brush-arbor shed and cave adjoined it for livestock. There was a sufficiency of timber here for a log cabin, although mostly hardwood. I suppose too that the man who built the thing was in a hurry and wanted for proper tools. A “cockeyed” chimney of sticks and mud stuck up through the bank at the rear of the house. It put me in mind of something made by a water bird, some cliff martin or a swift, although the work of those little feathered masons (who know not the use of a spirit level) is a sight more artful.

We were surprised to see smoke and sparks coming from the chimney. Light showed through the cracks around the door, which was a low, crude thing hung to the sill by leather hinges. There was no window.

We had halted in a cedar brake. Rooster dismounted and told us to wait. He took his Winchester repeating rifle and approached the door. He made a lot of noise as his boots broke through the crust that had now formed on top of the snow.

When he was about twenty feet from the dugout the door opened just a few inches. A man’s face appeared in the light and a hand came out holding a revolver. Rooster stopped. The face said, “Who is it out there?” Rooster said, “We are looking for shelter. There is three of us.” The face in the door said, “There is no room for you here.” The door closed and in a moment the light inside went out.

Rooster turned to us and made a beckoning signal. LaBoeuf dismounted and went to join him. I made a move to go but LaBoeuf told me to stay in the cover of the brake and hold the horses.

Rooster took off his deerskin jacket and gave it to LaBoeuf and sent him up on the clay bank to cover the chimney. Then Rooster moved about ten feet to the side and got down on one knee with his rifle at the ready. The jacket made a good damper and soon smoke could be seen curling out around the door. There were raised voices inside and then a hissing noise as of water being thrown on fire and coals.

The door was flung open and there came two fiery blasts from a shotgun. It scared me nearly to death. I heard the shot falling through tree branches. Rooster returned the volley with several shots from his rifle. There was a yelp of pain from inside and the door was slammed to again.

“I am a Federal officer!” said Rooster. “Who all is in there? Speak up and be quick about it!”

“A Methodist and a son of a bitch!” was the insolent reply. “Keep riding!”

“Is that Emmett Quincy?” said Rooster.

“We don’t know any Emmett Quincy!”

“Quincy, I know it is you! Listen to me! This is Rooster Cogburn! Columbus, Potter and five more marshals is out here with me! We have got a bucket of coal oil! In one minute we will burn you out from both ends! Chuck your arms out clear and come out with your hands locked on your head and you will not be harmed! Once that coal oil goes down the chimney we are killing everything that comes out the door!”

“There is only three of you!”

“You go ahead and bet your life on it! How many is in there?”

“Moon can’t walk! He is hit!”

“Drag him out! Light that lamp!”

“What kind of papers have you got on me?”

“I don’t have no papers on you! You better move, boy! How many is in there?”

“Just me and Moon! Tell them other officers to be careful with their guns! We are coming out!”

A light showed again from inside. The door was pulled back and a shotgun and two revolvers were pitched out. The two men came out with one limping and holding to the other. Rooster and LaBoeuf made them lie down on their bellies in the snow while they were searched for more weapons. The one called Quincy had a bowie knife in one boot and a little two-shot gambler’s pistol in the other. He said he had forgotten they were there but this did not keep Rooster from giving him a kick.

I came up with the horses and LaBoeuf took them into the stock shelter. Rooster poked the two men into the dugout with his rifle. They were young men in their twenties. The one called Moon was pale and frightened and looked no more dangerous than a fat puppy. He had been shot in the thigh and his trouser leg was bloody. The man Quincy had a long, thin face with eyes that were narrow and foreign-looking. He reminded me of some of those Slovak people that came in here a few years ago to cut barrel staves. The ones that stayed have made good citizens. People from those countries are usually Catholics if they are anything. They love candles and beads.

Rooster gave Moon a blue handkerchief to tie around his leg and then he bound the two men together with steel handcuffs and had them sit side by side on a bench. The only furniture in the place was a low table of adzed logs standing on pegs, and a bench on either side of it. I flapped a tow sack in the open door in an effort to clear the smoke out. A pot of coffee had been thrown into the fireplace but there were still some live coals and sticks around the edges and I stirred them up into a blaze again.

There was another pot in the fireplace too, a big one, a two-gallon pot, and it was filled with a mess that looked like hominy. Rooster tasted it with a spoon and said it was an Indian dish called sofky. He offered me some and said it was good. But it had trash in it and I declined.

“Was you boys looking for company?” he said.

“That is our supper and breakfast both,” said Quincy. “I like a big breakfast.”

“I would love to watch you eat breakfast.”

“Sofky always cooks up bigger than you think.”

“What are you boys up to outside of stealing stock and peddling spirits? You are way too jumpy.”

“You said you didn’t have no papers on us,” replied Quincy.

“I don’t have none on you by name,” said Rooster. “I got some John Doe warrants on a few jobs I could tailor up for you. Resisting a Federal officer too. That’s a year right there.”

“We didn’t know it was you. It might have been some crazy man out there.”

Moon said, “My leg hurts.”

Rooster said, “I bet it does. Set right still and it won’t bleed so bad.”

Quincy said, “We didn’t know who it was out there. A night like this. We was drinking some and the weather spooked us. Anybody can say he is a marshal. Where is all the other officers?”

“I misled you there, Quincy. When was the last time you seen your old pard Ned Pepper?”

“Ned Pepper?” said the stock thief. “I don’t know him. Who is he?”

“I think you know him,” said Rooster. “I know you have heard of him. Everybody has heard of him.”

“I never heard of him.”

“He used to work for Mr. Burlingame. Didn’t you work for him a while?”

“Yes, and I quit him like everybody else has done. He runs off all his good help, he is so close. The old skinflint. I wish he was in hell with his back broke. I don’t remember any Ned Pepper.”

Rooster said, “They say Ned was a mighty good drover. I am surprised you don’t remember him. He is a little feisty fellow, nervous and quick. His lip is all messed up.”

“That don’t bring anybody to mind. A funny lip.”

“He didn’t always have it. I think you know him. Now here is something else. There is a new boy running with Ned. He is short himself and he has got a powder mark on his face, a black place. He calls himself Chaney or Chelmsford sometimes. He carries a Henry rifle.”

“That don’t bring anybody to mind,” said Quincy. “A black mark. I would remember something like that.”

“You don’t know anything I want to know, do you?”

“No, and if I did I would not blow.”

“Well, you think on it some, Quincy. You too, Moon.”

Moon said, “I always try to help out the law if it won’t harm my friends. I don’t know them boys. I would like to help you if I could.”

“If you don’t help me I will take you both back to Judge Parker,” said Rooster. “By the time we get to Fort Smith that leg will be swelled up as tight as Dick’s hatband. It will be mortified and they will cut it off. Then if you live I will get you two or three years in the Federal House up in Detroit.”

“You are trying to get at me,” said Moon.

“They will teach you how to read and write up there but the rest of it is not so good,” said Rooster. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. If you give me some good information on Ned I will take you to McAlester’s tomorrow and you can get that ball out of your leg. Then I will give you three days to clear the Territory. They have a lot of fat stock in Texas and you boys can do well there.”

Moon said, “We can’t go to Texas.”

Quincy said, “Now don’t go to flapping your mouth, Moon. It is best to let me do the talking.”

“I can’t set still. My leg is giving me fits.”

Rooster got his bottle of whiskey and poured some in a cup for the young stock thief. “If you listen to Quincy, son, you will die or lose your leg,” said he. “Quincy ain’t hurting.”

Quincy said, “Don’t let him spook you, Moon. You must be a soldier. We will get clear of this.”

LaBoeuf came in lugging our bedrolls and other traps. He said, “There are six horses out there in that cave, Cogburn.”

“What kind of horses?” said Rooster.

“They look like right good mounts to me. I think they are all shod.”

Rooster questioned the thieves about the horses and Quincy claimed they had bought them at Fort Gibson and were taking them down to sell to the Indian police called the Choctaw Light Horse. But he could show no bill of sale or otherwise prove the property and Rooster did not believe the story. Quincy grew sullen and would answer no further questions.

I was sent out to gather firewood and I took the lamp, or rather the bull’s-eye lantern, for that was what it was, and kicked about in the snow and turned up some sticks and fallen saplings. I had no ax or hatchet and I dragged the pieces in whole, making several trips.

Rooster made another pot of coffee. He put me to slicing up the salt meat and corn dodgers, now frozen hard, and he directed Quincy to pick the feathers from the turkey and cut it up for frying. LaBoeuf wanted to roast the bird over the open fire but Rooster said it was not fat enough for that and would come out tough and dry.

I sat on a bench on one side of the table and the thieves sat on the other side, their manacled hands resting between them up on the table. The thieves had made pallets on the dirt floor by the fireplace and now Rooster and LaBoeuf sat on these blankets with their rifles in their laps, taking their ease. There were holes in the walls where the sod had fallen away and the wind came whistling through these places, making the lantern flicker a little, but the room was small and the fire gave off more than enough heat. Take it all around, we were rather cozily fixed.

I poured a can of scalding water over the stiff turkey but it was not enough to loosen all the feathers. Quincy picked them with his free hand and held the bird steady with the other. He grumbled over the awkwardness of the task. When the picking was done he cut the bird up into frying pieces with his big bowie knife and he showed his spite by doing a poor job of it. He made rough and careless chops instead of clean cuts.

Moon drank whiskey and whimpered from the pain in his leg. I felt sorry for him. Once he caught me stealing glances at him and he said, “What are you looking at?” It was a foolish question and I made no reply. He said, “Who are you? What are you doing here? What is this girl doing here?”

I said, “I am Mattie Ross of near Dardanelle, Arkansas. Now I will ask you a question. What made you become a stock thief?”

He said again, “What is this girl doing here?”

Rooster said, “She is with me.”

“She is with both of us,” said LaBoeuf.

Moon said, “It don’t look right to me. I don’t understand it.”

I said, “The man Chaney, the man with the marked face, killed my father. He was a whiskey drinker like you. It led to killing in the end. If you will answer the marshal’s questions he will help you. I have a good lawyer at home and he will help you too.”

“I am puzzled by this.”

Quincy said, “Don’t get to jawing with these people, Moon.”

I said, “I don’t like the way you look.”

Quincy stopped his work. He said, “Are you talking to me, runt?”

I said, “Yes, and I will say it again. I don’t like the way you look and I don’t like the way you are cutting up that turkey. I hope you go to jail. My lawyer will not help you.”

Quincy grinned and made a gesture with the knife as though to cut me. He said, “You are a fine one to talk about looks. You look like somebody has worked you over with the ugly stick.”

I said, “Rooster, this Quincy is making a mess out of the turkey. He has got the bones all splintered up with the marrow showing.”

Rooster said, “Do the job right, Quincy. I will have you eating feathers.”

“I don’t know nothing about this kind of work,” said Quincy.

“A man that can skin a beef at night as fast as you can ought to be able to butcher a turkey,” said Rooster.

Moon said, “I got to have me a doctor.”

Quincy said, “Let up on that drinking. It is making you silly.”

LaBoeuf said, “If we don’t separate those two we are not going to get anything. The one has got a hold on the other.”

Rooster said, “Moon is coming around. A young fellow like him don’t want to lose his leg. He is too young to be getting about on a willow peg. He loves dancing and sport.”

“You are trying to get at me,” said Moon.

“I am getting at you with the truth,” said Rooster.

In a few minutes Moon leaned over to whisper a confidence into Quincy’s ear. “None of that,” said Rooster, raising his rifle. “If you have anything on your mind we will all hear it.”

Moon said, “We seen Ned and Haze just two days ago.”

“Don’t act the fool!” said Quincy. “If you blow I will kill you.”

But Moon went on. “I am played out,” said he. “I must have a doctor. I will tell what I know.”

With that, Quincy brought the bowie knife down on Moon’s cuffed hand and chopped off four fingers which flew up before my eyes like chips from a log. Moon screamed and a rifle ball shattered the lantern in front of me and struck Quincy in the neck, causing hot blood to spurt on my face. My thought was: I am better out of this. I tumbled backward from the bench and sought a place of safety on the dirt floor.

Rooster and LaBoeuf sprang to where I lay and when they ascertained that I was not hurt they went to the fallen thieves. Quincy was insensible and dead or dying and Moon was bleeding terribly from his hand and from a mortal puncture in the breast that Quincy gave him before they fell.

“Oh Lord, I am dying!” said he.

Rooster struck a match for light and told me to fetch a pine knot from the fireplace. I found a good long piece and lit it and brought it back, a smoky torch to illuminate a dreadful scene. Rooster removed the handcuff from the poor young man’s wrist.

“Do something! Help me!” were his cries.

“I can do nothing for you, son,” said Rooster. “Your pard has killed you and I have done for him.”

“Don’t leave me laying here. Don’t let the wolves make an end of me.”

“I will see you are buried right, though the ground is hard,” said Rooster. “You must tell me about Ned. Where did you see him?”

“We seen him two days ago at McAlester’s, him and Haze. They are coming here tonight to get remounts and supper. They are robbing the Katy Flyer at Wagoner’s Switch if the snow don’t stop them.”

“There is four of them?”

“They wanted four horses, that is all I know. Ned was Quincy’s friend, not mine. I would not blow on a friend. I was afraid there would be shooting and I would not have a chance bound up like I was. I am bold in a fight.”

Rooster said, “Did you see a man with a black mark on his face?”

“I didn’t see nobody but Ned and Haze. When it comes to a fight I am right there where it is warmest but if I have time to think on it I am not true. Quincy hated all the laws but he was true to his friends.”

“What time did they say they would be here?”

“I looked for them before now. My brother is George Garrett. He is a Methodist circuit rider in south Texas. I want you to sell my traps, Rooster, and send the money to him in care of the district superintendent in Austin. The dun horse is mine, I paid for him. We got them others last night at Mr. Burlingame’s.”

I said, “Do you want us to tell your brother what happened to you?”

He said, “It don’t matter about that. He knows I am on the scout. I will meet him later walking the streets of Glory.”

Rooster said, “Don’t be looking for Quincy.”

“Quincy was always square with me,” said Moon. “He never played me false until he killed me. Let me have a drink of cold water.”

LaBoeuf brought him some water in a cup. Moon reached for it with the bloody stump and then took it with the other hand. He said, “It feels like I still have fingers there but I don’t.” He drank deep and it caused him pain. He talked a little more but in a rambling manner and to no sensible purpose. He did not respond to questions. Here is what was in his eyes: confusion. Soon it was all up with him and he joined his friend in death. He looked about thirty pounds lighter.

LaBoeuf said, “I told you we should have separated them.”

Rooster said nothing to that, not wishing to own he had made a mistake. He went through the pockets of the dead thieves and put such oddments as he found upon the table. The lantern was beyond repair and LaBoeuf brought out a candle from his saddle wallet and lit it and fixed it on the table. Rooster turned up a few coins and cartridges and notes of paper money and a picture of a pretty girl torn from an illustrated paper and pocket knives and a plug of tobacco. He also found a California gold piece in Quincy’s vest pocket.

I fairly shouted when I saw it. “That is my father’s gold piece!” said I. “Let me have it!”

It was not a round coin but a rectangular slug of gold that was minted in “The Golden State” and was worth thirty-six dollars and some few cents. Rooster said, “I never seen a piece like this before. Are you sure it is the one?” I said, “Yes, Grandfather Spurling gave Papa two of these when he married Mama. That scoundrel Chaney has still got the other one. We are on his trail for certain!”

“We are on Ned’s trail anyhow,” said Rooster. “I expect it is the same thing. I wonder how Quincy got aholt of this. Is this Chaney a gambler?”

LaBoeuf said, “He likes a game of cards. I reckon Ned has called off the robbery if he is not here by now.”

“Well, we won’t count on that,” said Rooster. “Saddle the horses and I will lug these boys out.”

“Do you aim to run?” said LaBoeuf.

Rooster turned a glittering eye on him. “I aim to do what I come out here to do,” said he. “Saddle the horses.”

Rooster directed me to straighten up the inside of the dugout. He carried the bodies out and concealed them in the woods. I sacked up the turkey fragments and pitched the wrecked lantern into the fireplace and stirred around on the dirt floor with a stick to cover the blood. Rooster was planning an ambush.

When he came back from his second trip to the woods he brought a load of limbs for the fireplace. He built up a big fire so there would be light and smoke and indicate that the cabin was occupied. Then we went out and joined LaBoeuf and the horses in the brush arbor. This dwelling, as I have said, was set back in a hollow where two slopes pinched together in a kind of V. It was a good place for what Rooster had in mind.

He directed LaBoeuf to take his horse and find a position up on the north slope about midway along one stroke of the V, and explained that he would take up a corresponding position on the south slope. Nothing was said about me with regard to the plan and I elected to stay with Rooster.

He said to LaBoeuf, “Find you a good place up yonder and then don’t move about. Don’t shoot unless you hear me shoot. What we want is to get them all in the dugout. I will kill the last one to go in and then we will have them in a barrel.”

“You will shoot him in the back?” asked LaBoeuf.

“It will give them to know our intentions is serious. These ain’t chicken thieves. I don’t want you to start shooting unless they break. After my first shot I will call down and see if they will be taken alive. If they won’t we will shoot them as they come out.”

“There is nothing in this plan but a lot of killing,” said LaBoeuf. “We want Chelmsford alive, don’t we? You are not giving them any show.”

“It is no use giving Ned and Haze a show. If they are taken they will hang and they know it. They will go for a fight every time. The others may be chicken-hearted and give up, I don’t know. Another thing, we don’t know how many there is. I do know there is just two of us.”

“Why don’t I try to wing Chelmsford before he gets inside?”

“I don’t like that,” said Rooster. “If there is any shooting before they get in that dugout we are likely to come up with a empty sack. I want Ned too. I want all of them.”

“All right,” said LaBoeuf. “But if they do break I am going for Chelmsford.”

“You are liable to kill him with that big Sharps no matter where you hit him. You go for Ned and I will try to nick this Chaney in the legs.”

“What does Ned look like?”

“He is a little fellow. I don’t know what he will be riding. He will be doing a lot of talking. Just go for the littlest one.”

“What if they hole up in there for a siege? They may figure on staying till dark and then breaking.”

“I don’t think they will,” said Rooster. “Now don’t keep on with this. Get on up there. If something queer turns up you will just have to use your head.”

“How long will we wait?”

“Till daylight anyhow.”

“I don’t think they are coming now.”

“Well, you may be right. Now move. Keep your eyes open and your horse quiet. Don’t go to sleep and don’t get the ‘jimjams.’”

Rooster took a cedar bough and brushed around over all our tracks in front of the dugout. Then we took our horses and led them up the hill in a roundabout route along a rocky stream bed. We went over the crest and Rooster posted me there with the horses. He told me to talk to them or give them some oats or put my hand over their nostrils if they started blowing or neighing. He put some corn dodgers in his pocket and left to go for his ambush position.

I said, “I cannot see anything from here.”

He said, “This is where I want you to stay.”

“I am going with you where I can see something.”

“You will do like I tell you.”

“The horses will be all right.”

“You have not seen enough killing tonight?”

“I am not staying here by myself.”

We started back over the ridge together. I said, “Wait, I will go back and get my revolver,” but he grabbed me roughly and pulled me along after him and I left the pistol behind. He found us a place behind a big log that offered a good view of the hollow and the dugout. We kicked the snow back so that we could rest on the leaves underneath. Rooster loaded his rifle from a sack of cartridges and placed the sack on the log where he would have it ready at hand. He got out his revolver and put a cartridge into the one chamber that he kept empty under the hammer. The same shells fit his pistol and rifle alike. I thought you had to have different kinds. I bunched myself up inside the slicker and rested my head against the log. Rooster ate a corn dodger and offered me one.

I said, “Strike a match and let me look at it first.”

“What for?” said he.

“There was blood on some of them.”

“We ain’t striking no matches.”

“I don’t want it then. Let me have some taffy.”

“It is all gone.”

I tried to sleep but it was too cold. I cannot sleep when my feet are cold. I asked Rooster what he had done before he became a Federal marshal.

“I done everything but keep school,” said he.

“What was one thing that you did?” said I.

“I skinned buffalo and killed wolves for bounty out on the Yellow House Creek in Texas. I seen wolves out there that weighed a hundred and fifty pounds.”

“Did you like it?”

“It paid well enough but I didn’t like that open country. Too much wind to suit me. There ain’t but about six trees between there and Canada. Some people like it fine. Everything that grows out there has got stickers on it.”

“Have you ever been to California?”

“I never got out there.”

“My Grandfather Spurling lives in Monterey, California. He owns a store there and he can look out his window any time he wants to and see the blue ocean. He sends me five dollars every Christmas. He has buried two wives and is now married to one called Jenny who is thirty-one years of age. That is one year younger than Mama. Mama will not even say her name.”

“I fooled around in Colorado for a spell but I never got out to California. I freighted supplies for a man named Cook out of Denver.”

“Did you fight in the war?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Papa did too. He was a good soldier.”

“I expect he was.”

“Did you know him?”

“No, where was he?”

“He fought at Elkhorn Tavern in Arkansas and was badly wounded at Chickamauga up in the state of Tennessee. He came home after that and nearly died on the way. He served in General Churchill’s brigade.”

“I was mostly in Missouri.”

“Did you lose your eye in the war?”

“I lost it in the fight at Lone Jack out of Kansas City. My horse was down too and I was all but blind. Cole Younger crawled out under a hail of fire and pulled me back. Poor Cole, he and Bob and Jim are now doing life in the Minnesota pen. You watch, when the truth is known, they will find it was Jesse W. James that shot that cashier in Northfield.”

“Do you know Jesse James?”

“I don’t remember him. Potter tells me he was with us at Centralia and killed a Yankee major there. Potter said he was a mean little viper then, though he was only a boy. Said he was meaner than Frank. That is going some, if it be so. I remember Frank well. We called him Buck then. I don’t remember Jesse.”

“Now you are working for the Yankees.”

“Well, the times has changed since Betsy died. I would have never thought it back then. The Red Legs from Kansas burned my folks out and took their stock. They didn’t have nothing to eat but clabber and roasting ears. You can eat a peck of roasting ears and go to bed hungry.”

“What did you do when the war was over?”

“Well, I will tell you what I done. When we heard they had all give up in Virginia, Potter and me rode into Independence and turned over our arms. They asked us was we ready to respect the Government in Washington city and take a oath to the Stars and Stripes. We said yes, we was about ready. We done it, we swallowed the puppy, but they wouldn’t let us go right then. They give us a one-day parole and told us to report back in the morning. We heard there was a Kansas major coming in that night to look over everybody for bushwhackers.”

“What are bushwhackers?”

“I don’t know. That is what they called us. Anyhow, we was not easy about that Kansas major. We didn’t know but what he would lock us up or worse, us having rode with Bill Anderson and Captain Quantrill. Potter lifted a revolver from a office and we lit out that night on two government mules. I am still traveling on the one-day parole and I reckon that jayhawker is waiting yet. Now our clothes was rags and we didn’t have the price of a plug of tobacco between us. About eight mile out of town we run into a Federal captain and three soldiers. They wanted to know if they was on the right road for Kansas City. That captain was a paymaster, and we relieved them gents of over four thousand in coin. They squealed like it was their own. It didn’t belong to nobody but the Government and we needed a road stake.”

“Four thousand dollars?”

“Yes, and all in gold. We got their horses too. Potter taken his half of the money and went down to Arkansas. I went to Cairo, Illinois, with mine and started calling myself Burroughs and bought a eating place called The Green Frog and married a grass widow. It had one billiard table. We served ladies and men both, but mostly men.”

“I didn’t know you had a wife.”

“Well, I don’t now. She taken a notion she wanted me to be a lawyer. Running a eating place was too low-down for her. She bought a heavy book called Daniels on Negotiable Instruments and set me to reading it. I never could get a grip on it. Old Daniels pinned me every time. My drinking picked up and I commenced staying away two and three days at a time with my friends. My wife did not crave the society of my river friends. She got a bellyful of it and decided she would go back to her first husband who was clerking in a hardware store over in Paducah. She said, ‘Goodbye, Reuben, a love for decency does not abide in you.’ There is your divorced woman talking about decency. I told her, I said, ‘Goodbye, Nola, I hope that little nail-selling bastard will make you happy this time.’ She took my boy with her too. He never did like me anyhow. I guess I did speak awful rough to him but I didn’t mean nothing by it. You would not want to see a clumsier child than Horace. I bet he broke forty cups.”

“What happened to The Green Frog?”

“I tried to run it myself for a while but I couldn’t keep good help and I never did learn how to buy meat. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was like a man fighting bees. Finally I just give up and sold it for nine hundred dollars and went out to see the country. That was when I went out to the staked plains of Texas and shot buffalo with Vernon Shaftoe and a Flathead Indian called Olly. The Mormons had run Shaftoe out of Great Salt Lake City but don’t ask me about what it was for. Call it a misunderstanding and let it go at that. There is no use in you asking me questions about it, for I will not answer them. Olly and me both taken a solemn oath to keep silent. Well, sir, the big shaggies is about all gone. It is a damned shame. I would give three dollars right now for a pickled buffalo tongue.”

“They never did get you for stealing that money?”

“I didn’t look on it as stealing.”

“That was what it was. It didn’t belong to you.”

“It never troubled me in that way. I sleep like a baby. Have for years.”

“Colonel Stonehill said you were a road agent before you got to be a marshal.”

“I wondered who was spreading that talk. That old gentleman would do better minding his own business.”

“Then it is just talk.”

“It is very little more than that. I found myself one pretty spring day in Las Vegas, New Mexico, in need of a road stake and I robbed one of them little high-interest banks there. Thought I was doing a good service. You can’t rob a thief, can you? I never robbed no citizens. I never taken a man’s watch.”

“It is all stealing,” said I.

“That was the position they taken in New Mexico,” said he. “I had to fly for my life. Three fights in one day. Bo was a strong colt then and there was not a horse in that territory could run him in the ground. But I did not appreciate being chased and shot at like a thief. When the posse had thinned down to about seven men I turned Bo around and taken the reins in my teeth and rode right at them boys firing them two navy sixes I carry on my saddle. I guess they was all married men who loved their families as they scattered and run for home.”

“That is hard to believe.”

“What is?”

“One man riding at seven men like that.”

“It is true enough. We done it in the war. I seen a dozen bold riders stampede a full troop of regular cavalry. You go for a man hard enough and fast enough and he don’t have time to think about how many is with him, he thinks about himself and how he may get clear out of the wrath that is about to set down on him.”

“I think you are ‘stretching the blanket.’”

“Well, that was the way of it. Me and Bo walked into Texas, we didn’t run. I might not do it today. I am older and stouter and so is Bo. I lost my money to some quarter-mile horse racers out there in Texas and followed them highbinders across Red River up in the Chickasaw Nation and lost their trail. That was when I tied up with a man named Fogelson who was taking a herd of beef to Kansas. We had a pretty time with them steers. It rained every night and the grass was spongy and rank. It was cloudy by day and the mosquitoes eat us up. Fogelson abused us like a stepfather. We didn’t know what sleep was. When we got to the South Canadian it was all out of the banks but Fogelson had a time contract and he wouldn’t wait. He said, ‘Boys, we are going across.’ We lost near about seventy head getting across and counted ourselves lucky. Lost our wagon too; we done without bread and coffee after that. It was the same story all over again at the North Canadian. ‘Boys, we are going across.’ Some of them steers got bogged in the mud on the other side and I was pulling them free. Bo was about played out and I hollered up for that Hutchens to come help me. He was sitting up there on his horse smoking a pipe. Now, he wasn’t a regular drover. He was from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and he had some interest in the herd. He said, ‘Do it yourself. That’s what you are paid for.’ I pulled down on him right there. It was not the thing to do but I was wore out and hadn’t had no coffee. It didn’t hurt him bad, the ball just skinned his head and he bit his pipe in two, yet nothing would do but he would have the law. There wasn’t no law out there and Fogelson told him as much, so Hutchens had me disarmed and him and two drovers taken me over to Fort Reno. Now the army didn’t care nothing about his private quarrels but there happened to be two Federal marshals there picking up some whiskey peddlers. One of them marshals was Potter.”

I was just about asleep. Rooster nudged me and said, “I say one of them marshals was Potter.”

“What?”

“One of them two marshals at Fort Reno was Potter.”

“It was your friend from the war? The same one?”

“Yes, it was Columbus Potter in the flesh. I was glad to see him. He didn’t let on he knowed me. He told Hutchens he would take me in charge and see I was prosecuted. Hutchens said he would come back by Fort Smith when his business was done in Kansas and appear against me. Potter told him his statement right there was good enough to convict me of assault. Hutchens said he never heard of a court where they didn’t need witnesses. Potter said they had found it saved time. We come on over to Fort Smith and Potter got me commissioned as deputy marshal. Jo Shelby had vouched for him to the chief marshal and got him the job. General Shelby is in the railroad business up in Missouri now and he knows all these Republicans. He wrote a handsome letter for me too. Well, there is no beat of a good friend. Potter was a trump.”

“Do you like being a marshal?”

“I believe I like it better than anything I done since the war. Anything beats droving. Nothing I like to do pays well.”

“I don’t think Chaney is going to show up.”

“We will get him.”

“I hope we get him tonight.”

“You told me you loved coon hunting.”

“I didn’t expect it would be easy. I still hope we get him tonight and have it done with.”

Rooster talked all night. I would doze off and wake up and he would still be talking. Some of his stories had too many people in them and were hard to follow but they helped to pass the hours and took my mind off the cold. I did not give credence to everything he said. He said he knew a woman in Sedalia, Missouri, who had stepped on a needle as a girl and nine years later the needle worked out of the thigh of her third child. He said it puzzled the doctors.

I was asleep when the bandits arrived. Rooster shook me awake and said, “Here they come.” I gave a start and turned over on my stomach so I could peer over the log. It was false dawn and you could see broad shapes and outlines but you could not make out details. The riders were strung out and they were laughing and talking amongst themselves. I counted them. Six! Six armed men against two! They exercised no caution at all and my thought was: Rooster’s plan is working fine. But when they were about fifty yards from the dugout they stopped. The fire inside the dugout had gone down but there was still a little string of smoke coming from the mud chimney.

Rooster whispered to me, “Do you see your man?”

I said, “I cannot see their faces.”

He said, “That little one without the hat is Ned Pepper. He has lost his hat. He is riding foremost.”

“What are they doing?”

“Looking about. Keep your head down.”

Lucky Ned Pepper appeared to be wearing white trousers but I learned later that these were sheepskin “chaps.” One of the bandits made a sound like a turkey gobbling. He waited and gobbled again and then another time, but of course there was no reply from the vacant dugout. Two of the bandits then rode up to the dugout and dismounted. One of them called out several times for Quincy. Rooster said, “That is Haze.” The two men then entered the cabin with their arms ready. In a minute or so they came out and searched around outside. The man Haze called out repeatedly for Quincy and once he whooped like a man calling hogs. Then he called back to the bandits who had remained mounted, saying, “The horses are here. It looks like Moon and Quincy have stepped out.”

“Stepped out where?” inquired the bandit chieftain, Lucky Ned Pepper.

“I can make nothing from the sign,” said the man Haze. “There is six horses in there. There is a pot of sofky in the fireplace but the fire is down. It beats me. Maybe they are out tracking game in the snow.”

Lucky Ned Pepper said, “Quincy would not leave a warm fire to go track a rabbit at night. That is no answer at all.”

Haze said, “The snow is all stirred up out here in front. Come and see what you make of it, Ned.”

The man that was with Haze said, “What difference does it make? Let us change horses and get on out of here. We can get something to eat at Ma’s place.”

Lucky Ned Pepper said, “Let me think a minute.”

The man that was with Haze said, “We are wasting time that is better spent riding. We have lost enough time in this snow and left a broad track as well.”

When the man spoke the second time Rooster identified him as a Mexican gambler from Fort Worth, Texas, who called himself The Original Greaser Bob. He did not talk the Mexican language, though I suppose he knew it. I looked hard at the mounted bandits but mere effort was not enough to pierce the shadows and make out faces. Nor could I tell much from their physical attitudes as they were wearing heavy coats and big hats and their horses were ever milling about. I did not recognize Papa’s horse, Judy.

Lucky Ned Pepper pulled one of his revolvers and fired it rapidly three times in the air. The noise rumbled in the hollow and there followed an expectant silence.

In a moment there came a loud report from the opposite ridge and Lucky Ned Pepper’s horse was felled as though from a poleax. Then more shots from the ridge and the bandits were seized with panic and confusion. It was LaBoeuf over there firing his heavy rifle as fast as he could load it.

Rooster cursed and rose to his feet and commenced firing and pumping his Winchester repeating rifle. He shot Haze and The Original Greaser before they could mount their horses. Haze was killed where he stood. The hot cartridge cases from Rooster’s rifle fell on my hand and I jerked it away. When he turned to direct his fire on the other bandits, The Original Greaser, who was only wounded, got to his feet and caught his horse and rode out behind the others. He was clinging to the far side of his horse with one leg thrown over for support. If you had not followed the entire “stunt” from start to finish as I had done, you would have thought the horse was riderless. That is how he escaped Rooster’s attention. I was “mesmerized” and proved to be of no help.

Now I will back up and tell of the others. Lucky Ned Pepper was bowled over with his horse but he quickly crawled from under the dead beast and cut his saddle wallets free with a knife. The other three bandits had already spurred their horses away from the deadly cockpit, as I may call it, and they were firing their rifles and revolvers at LaBoeuf on the run. Rooster and I were behind them and a good deal farther away from them than LaBoeuf. As far as I know, not a shot was fired at us.

Lucky Ned Pepper shouted after the riders and pursued them on foot in a zigzag manner. He carried the saddle wallets over one arm and a revolver in the other hand. Rooster could not hit him. The bandit was well named “Lucky,” and his luck was not through running yet. In all the booming and smoke and confusion, one of his men chanced to hear his cries and he wheeled his horse about and made a dash back to pick up his boss. Just as the man reached Lucky Ned Pepper and leaned over to extend a hand to help him aboard he was knocked clean from the saddle by a well-placed shot from LaBoeuf’s powerful rifle. Lucky Ned Pepper expertly swung aboard in the man’s place without so much as a word or a parting glance at the fallen friend who had dared to come back and save him. He rode low and the trick-riding Mexican gambler followed him out and they were gone. The scrap did not last as long as it has taken me to describe it.

Rooster told me to get the horses. He ran down the hill on foot.

The bandits had left two of their number behind and we had forced the others to continue their flight on jaded ponies, but I thought we had little reason to congratulate ourselves. The bandits in the snow were dead men and could “tell no tales.” We had not identified Chaney among those who escaped. Was he with them? Were we really on his trail? Also, we found that Lucky Ned Pepper had made off with the greater part of the loot from the train robbery.

The thing might have fallen out more to our advantage had LaBoeuf not started the fight prematurely. But I cannot be sure. I think Lucky Ned Pepper had no intention of entering that dugout, or indeed of approaching it any closer, when he discovered the two stock thieves unaccountably missing. So our plan had miscarried in any case. Rooster was disposed to place all the blame on LaBoeuf.

When I reached the bottom of the hill with the horses he was cursing the Texan to his face. I am certain the two must have come to blows if LaBoeuf had not been distracted from a painful wound. A ball had struck his rifle stock and splinters of wood and lead had torn the soft flesh of his upper arm. He said he had not been able to see well from his position and was moving to a better place when he heard the three signal shots fired by Lucky Ned Pepper. He thought the fight was joined and he stood up from a crouch and threw a quick shot down at the man he had rightly sized up as the bandit chieftain.

Rooster called it a likely story and charged that LaBoeuf had fallen asleep and had started shooting from panic when the signal shots awakened him. I thought it was in LaBoeuf’s favor that his first shot had struck and killed Lucky Ned Pepper’s horse. If he had been shooting from panic would he have come so near to hitting the bandit chieftain with his first shot? On the other hand, he claimed to be an experienced officer and rifleman, and if he had been alert and had taken a deliberate shot would he not have hit his mark? Only LaBoeuf knew the truth of the matter. I grew impatient with their wrangling over the point. I think Rooster was angry because the play had been taken away from him and because Lucky Ned Pepper had beaten him once again.

The two officers made no move to give pursuit to the robber band and I suggested that we had better make such a move. Rooster said he knew where they were going to earth and he did not wish to risk riding into an ambush along the way. LaBoeuf made the point that our horses were fresh and theirs jaded. He said we could track them easily and overtake them in short order. But Rooster wanted to take the stolen horses and the dead bandits down to McAlester’s and establish a prior claim to any reward the M. K. & T. Railroad might offer. Scores of marshals and railroad detectives and informers would soon be in on the game, said he.

LaBoeuf was rubbing snow on the torn places of his arm to check the bleeding. He took off his neck cloth for use as a bandage but he could not manage it with one hand and I helped him.

Rooster watched me minister to the Texan’s arm and he said, “That is nothing to do with you. Go inside and make some coffee.”

I said, “This will not take long.”

He said, “Let it go and make the coffee.”

I said, “Why are you being so silly?”

He walked away and I finished binding up the arm. I heated up the sofky and picked the trash from it and boiled some coffee in the fireplace. LaBoeuf joined Rooster in the stock cave and they strung the six horses together with halters and a long manila rope and lashed the four dead bodies across their backs like sacks of corn. The dun horse belonging to Moon bolted and bared his teeth and would not permit his dead master to be placed on his back. A less sensitive horse was found to serve.

Rooster could not identify the man who had returned to rescue Lucky Ned Pepper. I say “man.” He was really only a boy, not much older than I. His mouth was open and I could not bear to look at him. The man Haze was old with a sallow wrinkled face. They had a hard time breaking the revolver free from his “death grip.”

The two officers found Haze’s horse in the woods nearby. He was not injured. Right behind the saddle the horse was carrying two tow-sacks, and in these sacks were about thirty-five watches, some ladies’ rings, some pistols and around six hundred dollars in notes and coin. Loot from the passengers of the Katy Flyer! While searching over the ground where the bandits had made their fight, LaBoeuf turned up some copper cartridge cases. He showed them to Rooster.

I said, “What are they?”

Rooster said, “This one is a forty-four rim-fire from a Henry rifle.”

Thus we had another clue. But we did not have Chaney. We had not even set eyes on him to know it. We took a hasty breakfast of the Indian hominy dish and departed the place.

It was only an hour’s ride to the Texas Road. We made quite a caravan. If you had chanced to be riding up the Texas Road on that bright December morning you would have met two red-eyed peace officers and a sleepy youth from near Dardanelle, Arkansas, riding south at a walk and leading seven horses. Had you looked closely you would have seen that four of those horses were draped over with the corpses of armed robbers and stock thieves. We did in fact meet several travelers and they marveled and wondered at our grisly cargo.

Some of them had already heard news of the train robbery. One man, an Indian, told us that the robbers had realized $17,000 in cash from the express car. Two men in a buggy told us their information put the figure at $70,000. A great difference!

The accounts did agree roughly on the circumstances of the robbery. Here is what happened. The bandits broke the switch lock at Wagoner’s Switch and forced the train onto a cattle siding. There they took the engineer and the fireman as hostages and threatened to kill them if the express clerk did not open the doors of his car. The clerk had spunk and refused to open the doors. The robbers killed the fireman. But the clerk still held fast. The robbers then blasted the door open with dynamite and the clerk was killed in the explosion. More dynamite was used to open the safe. While this was going on two bandits were walking through the coaches with cocked revolvers gathering up “booty” from the passengers. One man in a sleeping car protested the outrage and was assaulted and cut on the head with a pistol barrel. He was the only one they bothered except for the fireman and the express clerk. The bandits wore their hats low and had handkerchiefs tied over their faces but Lucky Ned Pepper was recognized by way of his small size and commanding manner. None of the others was identified. And that is how they robbed the Katy Flyer at Wagoner’s Switch.

The riding was easy on the Texas Road. It was broad and had a good packed surface as Rooster had described it. The sun was out and the snow melted fast under the warm and welcome rays of “Old Sol.”

As we rode along LaBoeuf commenced whistling tunes, perhaps to take his mind off his sore arm. Rooster said, “God damn a man that whistles!” It was the wrong thing to say if he wished it to stop. LaBoeuf then had to keep it up to show that he cared little for Rooster’s opinion. After a while he took a Jew’s harp from his pocket. He began to thump and twang upon it. He played fiddle tunes. He would announce, “Soldier’s Joy,” and play that. Then, “Johnny in the Low Ground,” and play that. Then, “The Eighth of January,” and play that. They all sounded pretty much like the same song. LaBoeuf said, “Is there anything you would particularly like to hear, Cogburn?” He was trying to get his “goat.” Rooster gave no answer. LaBoeuf then played a few minstrel tunes and put the peculiar instrument away.

In a few minutes he asked Rooster this question, indicating the big revolvers in the saddle scabbards: “Did you carry those in the war?”

Rooster said, “I have had them a good long time.”

LaBoeuf said, “I suppose you were with the cavalry.”

Rooster said, “I forget just what they called it.”

“I wanted to be cavalryman,” said LaBoeuf, “but I was too young and didn’t own a horse. I have always regretted it. I went in the army on my fifteenth birthday and saw the last six months of the war. My mother cried because my brothers had not been home in three years. They were off at the first tap of a drum. The army put me in the supply department and I counted beeves and sacked oats for General Kirby-Smith at Shreveport. It was no work for a soldier. I wanted to get out of the Trans-Mississippi Department and go east. I wanted to see some real fighting. Right toward the last I got an opportunity to travel up there with a commissary officer, Major Burks, who was being transferred to the Department of Virginia. There were twenty-five in our party and we got there in time for Five Forks and Petersburg and then it was all over. I have always regretted that I did not get to ride with Stuart or Forrest or some of the others. Shelby and Early.”

Rooster said nothing.

I said, “It looks like six months would be enough for you.”

LaBoeuf said, “No, it sounds boastful and foolish but it was not. I was almost sick when I heard of the surrender.”

I said, “My father said he sure was glad to get home. He nearly died on the way.”

LaBoeuf then said to Rooster, “It is hard to believe a man cannot remember where he served in the war. Do you not even remember your regiment?”

Rooster said, “I think they called it the bullet department. I was in it four years.”

“You do not think much of me, do you, Cogburn?”

“I don’t think about you at all when your mouth is closed.”

“You are making a mistake about me.”

“I don’t like this kind of talk. It is like women talking.”

“I was told in Fort Smith that you rode with Quantrill and that border gang.”

Rooster made no reply.

LaBoeuf said, “I have heard they were not soldiers at all but murdering thieves.”

Rooster said, “I have heard the same thing.”

“I heard they murdered women and children at Lawrence, Kansas.”

“I have heard that too. It is a damned lie.”

“Were you there?”

“Where?”

“The Lawrence raid.”

“There has been a lot of lies told about that.”

“Do you deny they shot down soldiers and civilians alike and burned the town?”

“We missed Jim Lane. What army was you in, mister?”

“I was at Shreveport first with Kirby-Smith—”

“Yes, I heard about all them departments. What side was you on?”

“I was in the Army of Northern Virginia, Cogburn, and I don’t have to hang my head when I say it. Now make another joke about it. You are only trying to put on a show for this girl Mattie with what you must think is a keen tongue.”

“This is like women talking.”

“Yes, that is the way. Make me out foolish in this girl’s eyes.”

“I think she has got you pretty well figured.”

“You are making a mistake about me, Cogburn, and I do not appreciate the way you make conversation.”

“That is nothing for you to worry about. That nor Captain Quantrill either.”

“Captain Quantrill!”

“You had best let this go, LaBoeuf.”

“Captain of what?”

“If you are looking for a fight I will accommodate you. If you are not you will let this alone.”

“Captain Quantrill indeed!”

I rode up between them and said, “I have been thinking about something. Listen to this. There were six bandits and two stock thieves and yet only six horses at the dugout. What is the answer to that?”

Rooster said, “Six horses was all they needed.”

I said, “Yes, but that six includes the horses belonging to Moon and Quincy. There were only four stolen horses.”

Rooster said, “They would have taken them other two as well and exchanged them later. They have done it before.”

“Then what would Moon and Quincy do for mounts?”

“They would have the six tired horses.”

“Oh. I had forgotten about them.”

“It was only a swap for a few days.”

“I was thinking that Lucky Ned Pepper might have been planning to murder the two stock thieves. It would have been a treacherous scheme but then they could not inform against him. What do you think?”

“No, Ned would not do that.”

“Why not? He and his desperate band killed a fireman and an express clerk on the Katy Flyer last night.”

“Ned does not go around killing people if he has no good reason. If he has a good reason he kills them.”

“You can think what you want to,” said I. “I think betrayal was part of his scheme.”

We reached J. J. McAlester’s store about 10 o’clock that morning. The people of the settlement turned out to see the dead bodies and there were gasps and murmurs over the spectacle of horror, made the worse by way of the winter morning being so sunny and cheerful. It must have been a trading day for there were several wagons and horses tied up about the store. The railroad tracks ran behind it. There was little more to the place than the store building and a few smaller frame and log structures of poor description, and yet if I am not mistaken this was at that time one of the best towns in the Choctaw Nation. The store is now part of the modern little city of McAlester, Oklahoma, where for a long time “coal was king.” McAlester is also the international headquarters of the Order of the Rainbow for Girls.

There was no real doctor there at that time but there was a young Indian who had some medical training and was competent to set broken bones and dress gunshot wounds. LaBoeuf sought him out for treatment.

I went with Rooster, who searched out an Indian policeman of his acquaintance, a Captain Boots Finch of the Choctaw Light Horse. These police handled Indian crimes only, and where white men were involved the Light Horse had no authority. We found the captain in a small log house. He was sitting on a box by a stove getting his hair cut. He was a slender man about of an age with Rooster. He and the Indian barber were ignorant of the stir our arrival had caused.

Rooster came up behind the captain and goosed him in the ribs with both hands and said, “How is the people’s health, Boots?”

The captain gave a start and reached for his pistol, and then he saw who it was. He said, “Well, I declare, Rooster. What brings you to town so early?”

“Is this town? I was thinking I was out of town.”

Captain Finch laughed at the gibe. He said, “You must have traveled fast if you are here on that Wagoner’s Switch business.”

“That is the business right enough.”

“It was little Ned Pepper and five others. I suppose you know that.”

“Yes. How much did they get?”

“Mr. Smallwood says they got $17,000 cash and a packet of registered mail from the safe. He has not got a total on the passenger claims. I am afraid you are on a cold trail here.”

“When did you last see Ned?”

“I am told he passed through here two days ago. He and Haze and a Mexican on a round-bellied calico pony. I didn’t see them myself. They won’t be coming back this way.”

Rooster said, “That Mexican was Greaser Bob.”

“Is that the young one?”

“No, it’s the old one, the Original Bob from Fort Worth.”

“I heard he was badly shot in Denison and had given up his reckless ways.”

“Bob is hard to kill. He won’t stay shot. I am looking for another man. I think he is with Ned. He is short and has a black mark on his face and he carries a Henry rifle.”

Captain Finch thought about it. He said, “No, the way I got it, there was only the three here. Haze and the Mexican and Ned. We are watching his woman’s house. It is a waste of time and none of my business but I have sent a man out there.”

Rooster said, “It is a waste of time all right. I know about where Ned is.”

“Yes, I know too but it will take a hundred marshals to smoke him out of there.”

“It won’t take that many.”

“It wouldn’t take that many Choctaws. How many were in that marshals’ party in August? Forty?”

“It was closer to fifty,” said Rooster. “Joe Schmidt was running that game, or misrunning it. I am running this one.”

“I am surprised the chief marshal would turn you loose on a hunt like this without supervision.”

“He can’t help himself this time.”

Captain Finch said, “I could take you in there, Rooster, and show you how to bring Ned out.”

“Could you now? Well, a Indian makes too much noise to suit me. Don’t you find it so, Gaspargoo?”

That was the barber’s name. He laughed and put his hand over his mouth. Gaspargoo is also the name of a fish that makes fair eating.

I said to the captain, “Perhaps you are wondering who I am.”

“Yes, I was wondering that,” said he. “I thought you were a walking hat.”

“My name is Mattie Ross,” said I. “The man with the black mark goes by the name of Tom Chaney. He shot my father to death in Fort Smith and robbed him. Chaney was drunk and my father was not armed at the time.”

“That is a shame,” said the captain.

“When we find him we are going to club him with sticks and put him under arrest and take him back to Fort Smith,” said I.

“I wish you luck. We don’t want him down here.”

Rooster said, “Boots, I need a little help. I have got Haze and some youngster out there, along with Emmett Quincy and Moon Garrett. I am after being in a hurry and I wanted to see if you would not bury them boys for me.”

“They are dead?”

“All dead,” said Rooster. “What is it the judge says? Their depredations is now come to a fitting end.”

Captain Finch pulled the barber’s cloth from his neck. He and the barber went with us back to where the horses were tied. Rooster told them about our scrap at the dugout.

The captain grasped each dead man by the hair of the head and when he recognized a face he grunted and spoke the name. The man Haze had no hair to speak of and Captain Finch lifted his head by the ears. We learned that the boy was called Billy. His father ran a steam sawmill on the South Canadian River, the captain told us, and there was a large family at home. Billy was one of the eldest children and he had helped his father cut timber. The boy was not known to have been in any devilment before this. As for the other three, the captain did not know if they had any people who would want to claim the bodies.

Rooster said, “All right, you hold Billy for the family and bury these others. I will post their names in Fort Smith and if anybody wants them they can come dig them up.” Then he went along behind the horses slapping their rumps. He said, “These four horses was taken from Mr. Burlingame. These three right here belong to Haze and Quincy and Moon. You get what you can for them, Boots, and sell the saddles and guns and coats and I will split it with you. Is that fair enough?”

I said, “You told Moon you would send his brother the money owing to him from his traps.”

Rooster said, “I forgot where he said to send it.”

I said, “It is the district superintendent of the Methodist Church in Austin, Texas. His brother is a preacher named George Garrett.”

“Was it Austin or Dallas?”

“Austin.”

“Let’s get it straight.”

“It was Austin.”

“All right then, write it down for the captain. Send this man ten dollars, Boots, and tell him his brother got cut and is buried here.”

Captain Finch said, “Are you going out by way of Mr. Burlingame’s?”

“I don’t have the time,” said Rooster. “I would like for you to send word out if you will. Just so Mr. Burlingame knows it was deputy marshal Rooster Cogburn that recovered them horses.”

“Do you want this girl with the hat to write it down?”

“I believe you can remember it if you try.”

Captain Finch called out to some Indian youths who were standing nearby looking at us. I gathered he was telling them in the Choctaw tongue to see to the horses and the burial of the bodies. He had to speak to them a second time and very sharply before they would approach the bodies.

The railroad agent was an older man named Smallwood. He praised us for our pluck and he was very much pleased to see the sacks of cash and valuables we had recovered. You may think Rooster was hard in appropriating the traps of the dead men but I will tell you that he did not touch one cent of the money that was stolen at gunpoint from the passengers of the Katy Flyer. Smallwood looked over the “booty” and said it would certainly help to cover the loss, though it was his experience that some of the victims would make exaggerated claims.

He had known the martyred clerk personally and he said the man had been a loyal employee of the M. K. & T. for some years. In his youth the clerk had been a well-known foot racer in Kansas. He showed his spunk right to the end. Smallwood did not know the fireman personally. In both cases, said he, the M. K. & T. would try to do something for the bereaved families, though times were hard and revenue down. They say Jay Gould had no heart! Smallwood also assured Rooster that the railroad would do right by him, providing he “clean up” Lucky Ned Pepper’s robber band and recover the stolen express funds.

I advised Rooster to get a written statement from Smallwood to that effect, along with an itemized, timed and dated receipt for the two sacks of “booty.” Smallwood was wary about committing his company too far but we got a receipt out of him and a statement saying that Rooster had produced on that day the lifeless bodies of two men “whom he alleges took part in said robbery.” I think Smallwood was a gentleman but gentlemen are only human and their memories can sometimes fail them. Business is business.

Mr. McAlester, who kept the store, was a good Arkansas man. He too commended us for our actions and he gave us towels and pans of hot water and some sweet-smelling olive soap. His wife served us a good country dinner with fresh buttermilk. LaBoeuf joined us for the hearty meal. The medical-trained Indian had been able to remove all the big splinters and lead fragments and he had bound the arm tightly. Naturally the limb remained stiff and sore, yet the Texan enjoyed a limited use of it.

When we had eaten our fill, Mr. McAlester’s wife asked me if I did not wish to lie down on her bed for a nap. I was sorely tempted but I saw through the scheme. I had noticed Rooster talking to her on the sly at the table. I concluded he was trying to get shed of me once again. “Thank you, mam, I am not tired,” said I. It was the biggest story I have ever told!

We did not leave right away because Rooster found that his horse Bo had dropped a front shoe. We went to a little shed kept by a blacksmith. While waiting there, LaBoeuf repaired the broken stock of his Sharps rifle by wrapping copper wire around it. Rooster hurried the smith along with the shoeing, as he was not disposed to linger in the settlement. He wished to stay ahead of the posse of marshals that he knew was even then scouring the brush for Lucky Ned Pepper and his band.

He said to me, “Sis, the time has come when I must move fast. It is a hard day’s ride to where I am going. You will wait here and Mrs. McAlester will see to your comfort. I will be back tomorrow or the next day with our man.”

“No, I am going along,” said I.

LaBoeuf said, “She has come this far.”

Rooster said, “It is far enough.”

I said, “Do you think I am ready to quit when we are so close?”

LaBoeuf said, “There is something in what she says, Cogburn. I think she has done fine myself. She has won her spurs, so to speak. That is just my personal opinion.”

Rooster held up his hand and said, “All right, let it go. I have said my piece. We won’t have a lot of talk about winning spurs.”

We departed the place around noon, traveling east and slightly south. Rooster called the turn when he said “hard riding.” That big long-legged Bo just walked away from the two ponies, but the weight began to tell on him after a few miles and Little Blackie and the shaggy pony closed the distance on him ere long. We rode like the very “dickens” for about forty minutes and then stopped and dismounted and walked for a spell, giving the horses a rest. It was while we were walking that a rider came up hallooing and overtook us. We were out on a prairie and we saw him coming for some little distance.

It was Captain Finch, and he brought exciting news. He told us that shortly after we had left McAlester’s, he received word that Odus Wharton had broken from the basement jail in Fort Smith. The escape had taken place early that morning.

Here is what happened. Not long after breakfast two trusty prisoners brought in a barrel of clean sawdust for use in the spittoons of that foul dungeon. It was fairly dark down there and in a moment when the guards were not looking the trusties concealed Wharton and another doomed murderer inside the barrel. Both men were of slight stature and inconsiderable weight. The trusties then carried the two outside and away to freedom. A bold daylight escape in a fat barrel! Some clever “stunt”! The trusties ran off along with the convicted killers and very likely drew good wages for their audacity.

On hearing the news Rooster did not appear angry or in any way perturbed, but only amused. You may wonder why. He had his reasons and among them were these, that Wharton now stood no chance of winning a commutation from President R. B. Hayes, and also that the escape would cause Lawyer Goudy a certain amount of chagrin in Washington city and would no doubt result in a big expense loss for him, as clients who resolve their own problems are apt to be slow in paying due bills from a lawyer.

Captain Finch said, “I thought you had better know about this.”

Rooster said, “I appreciate it, Boots. I appreciate you riding out here.”

“Wharton will be looking for you.”

“If he is not careful he will find me.”

Captain Finch looked LaBoeuf over, then said to Rooster, “Is this the man who shot Ned’s horse from under him?”

Rooster said, “Yes, this is the famous horse killer from El Paso, Texas. His idea is to put everybody on foot. He says it will limit their mischief.”

LaBoeuf’s fair-complected face became congested with angry blood. He said, “There was very little light and I was firing off-hand. I did not have the time to find a rest.”

Captain Finch said, “There is no need to apologize for that shot. A good many more people have missed Ned than have hit him.”

“I was not apologizing,” said LaBoeuf. “I was only explaining the circumstances.”

“Rooster here has missed Ned a few times himself, horse and all,” said the captain. “I reckon he is on his way now to missing him again.”

Rooster was holding a bottle with a little whiskey in it. He said, “You keep on thinking that.” He drained off the whiskey in about three swallows and tapped the cork back in and tossed the bottle up in the air. He pulled his revolver and fired at it twice and missed. The bottle fell and rolled and Rooster shot at it two or three more times and broke it on the ground. He got out his sack of cartridges and reloaded the pistol. He said, “The Chinaman is running them cheap shells in on me again.”

LaBoeuf said, “I thought maybe the sun was in your eyes. That is to say, your eye.”

Rooster swung the cylinder back in his revolver and said, “Eyes, is it? I’ll show you eyes!” He jerked the sack of corn dodgers free from his saddle baggage. He got one of the dodgers out and flung it in the air and fired at it and missed. Then he flung another one up and he hit it. The corn dodger exploded. He was pleased with himself and he got a fresh bottle of whiskey from his baggage and treated himself to a drink.

LaBoeuf pulled one of his revolvers and got two dodgers out of the sack and tossed them both up. He fired very rapidly but he only hit one. Captain Finch tried it with two and missed both of them. Then he tried with one and made a successful shot. Rooster shot at two and hit one. They drank whiskey and used up about sixty corn dodgers like that. None of them ever hit two at one throw with a revolver but Captain Finch finally did it with his Winchester repeating rifle, with somebody else throwing. It was entertaining for a while but there was nothing educational about it. I grew more and more impatient with them.

I said, “Come on, I have had my bait of this. I am ready to go. Shooting cornbread out here on this prairie is not taking us anywhere.”

By then Rooster was using his rifle and the captain was throwing for him. “Chunk high and not so far out this time,” said he.

At length, Captain Finch took his leave and went back the way he came. We continued our journey eastward, with the Winding Stair Mountains as our destination. We lost a good half-hour with that shooting foolishness, but, worse than that, it started Rooster to drinking.

He drank even as he rode, which looked difficult. I cannot say it slowed him down any but it did make him silly. Why do people wish to be silly? We kept up our fast pace, riding hard for forty or fifty minutes and then going on foot for a piece. I believe those walks were a more welcome rest for me than for the horses. I have never claimed to be a cow-boy! Little Blackie did not falter. He had good wind and his spirit was such that he would not let LaBoeuf’s shaggy mount get ahead of him on an open run. Yes, you bet he was a game pony!

We loped across open prairies and climbed wooded limestone hills and made our way through brushy bottoms and icy streams. Much of the snow melted under the sun but as the long shadows of dusk descended in all their purple loveliness, the temperature did likewise. We were very warm from our exertions and the chill night air felt good at first, but then it became uncomfortable as we slowed our pace. We did not ride fast after dark as it would have been dangerous for the horses. LaBoeuf said the Rangers often rode at night to avoid the terrible Texas sun and this was like nothing at all to him. I did not care for it myself.

Nor did I enjoy the slipping and sliding when we were climbing the steep grades of the Winding Stair Mountains. There is a lot of thick pine timber in those hills and we wandered up and down in the double-darkness of the forest. Rooster stopped us twice while he dismounted and looked around for sign. He was well along to being drunk. Later on he got to talking to himself and one thing I heard him say was this: “Well, we done the best we could with what we had. We was in a war. All we had was revolvers and horses.” I supposed he was brooding about the hard words LaBoeuf had spoken to him on the subject of his war service. He got louder and louder but it was hard to tell whether he was still talking to himself or addressing himself to us. I think it was a little of both. On one long climb he fell off his horse, but he quickly gained his feet and mounted again.

“That was nothing, nothing,” said he. “Bo put a foot wrong, that was all. He is tired. This is no grade. I have freighted iron stoves up harder grades than this, and pork as well. I lost fourteen barrels of pork on a shelf road not much steeper than this and old Cook never batted a eye. I was a pretty fair jerk-line teamster, could always talk to mules, but oxen was something else. You don’t get that quick play with cattle that you get with mules. They are slow to start and slow to turn and slow to stop. It taken me a while to learn it. Pork brought a thundering great price out there then but old Cook was a square dealer and he let me work it out at his lot price. Yes sir, he paid liberal wages too. He made money and he didn’t mind his help making money. I will tell you how much he made. He made fifty thousand dollars in one year with them wagons but he did not enjoy good health. Always down with something. He was all bowed over and his neck was stiff from drinking Jamaica ginger. He had to look up at you through his hair, like this, unless he was laying down, and as I say, that rich jaybird was down a lot. He had a good head of brown hair, had every lock until he died. Of course he was a right young man when he died. He only looked old. He was carrying a twenty-one-foot tapeworm along with his business responsibilities and that aged him. Killed him in the end. They didn’t even know he had it till he was dead, though he ate like a field hand, ate five or six good dinners every day. If he was alive today I believe I would still be out there. Yes, I know I would, and I would likely have money in the bank. I had to make tracks when his wife commenced to running things. She said, ‘You can’t leave me like this, Rooster. All my drivers is leaving me.’ I told her, I said, ‘You watch me.’ No sir, I was not ready to work for her and I told her so. There is no generosity in women. They want everything coming in and nothing going out. They show no trust. Lord God, how they hate to pay you! They will get the work of two men out of you and I guess they would beat you with whips if they was able to. No sir, not me. Never. A man will not work for a woman, not unless he has clabber for brains.”

LaBoeuf said, “I told you that in Fort Smith.”

I do not know if the Texan intended the remark to tell against me, but if he did, it was “water off a duck’s back.” You cannot give any weight to the words of a drunkard, and even so, I knew Rooster could not be talking about me in his drunken criticism of women, the kind of money I was paying him. I could have confounded him and his silliness right there by saying, “What about me? What about that twenty-five dollars I have given you?” But I had not the strength nor the inclination to bandy words with a drunkard. What have you done when you have bested a fool?

I thought we would never stop, and must be nearing Montgomery, Alabama. From time to time LaBoeuf and I would interrupt Rooster and ask him how much much farther and he would reply, “It is not far now,” and then he would pick up again on a chapter in the long and adventurous account of his life. He had seen a good deal of strife in his travels.

When at last we did stop, Rooster said only, “I reckon this will do.” It was well after midnight. We were on a more or less level place in a pine forest up in the hills and that was all I could determine. I was so tired and stiff I could not think straight.

Rooster said he calculated we had come about fifty miles—fifty miles!—from McAlester’s store and were now positioned some four miles from Lucky Ned Pepper’s bandit stronghold. Then he wrapped himself up in his buffalo robe and retired without ceremony, leaving LaBoeuf to see to the horses.

The Texan watered them from the canteens and fed them and tied them out. He left the saddles on them for warmth, but with the girths loosened. Those poor horses were worn out.

We made no fire. I took a hasty supper of bacon and biscuit sandwiches. The biscuits were pretty hard. There was a layer of pine straw under the patchy snow and I raked up a thick pile with my hands for a woodland mattress. The straw was dirty and brittle and somewhat damp but at that it made for a better bed than any I had seen on this journey. I rolled up in my blankets and slicker and burrowed down into the straw. It was a clear winter night and I made out the Big Dipper and the North Star through the pine branches. The moon was already down. My back hurt and my feet were swollen and I was so exhausted that my hands quivered. The quivering passed and I was soon in the “land of Nod.”