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In the wild cow-town of Charleston where the lights turned pale under the hot flush of every dawn the desperadoes from the Pecos learned how John Slaughter had established himself before them in this new land; how his cow-boys patrolled the range which he still held on the San Pedro and the new range farther to the east, guarding his herds by force of arms; and how the silent Texan had already declared war on the whole incoming tribe of cattle-thieves by driving Ike and Billy Clanton from his old ranch at revolver's point, bidding them never to show their faces there again.
A little lower stood a chapel or a hermit's cell; who built or dwelt in it, none may know, and the thought of its age made a ground of many meditations. The prison, too, where I now bivouacked with Highland cattle-thieves, was a place full of history, both human and divine.
He acknowledged that he had taken the horses, but said he did it in fun. Then the cattle-thieves had come along and taken the steeds from him. "And you got paid for letting them go," said Mr. Endicott. "You got several hundred dollars from Andrews." "Who say says so?" faltered Link. "Never mind, we'll prove it," answered the railroad president, coldly.
"He was well thought of by all the big outfits; and when the situation became intolerable, and we got together to weed out 'the rustlers, as these cattle-thieves were called, your father was approached and converted to a belief in drastic measures. He had suffered less than the rest of us because of his small herd and the fact that he was very popular among the cowboys.
Showdown was a rendezvous for that inglorious legion, "The Men Who Can't Come Back," renegades who when below the line worked machine guns for whichever side of the argument promised the more loot. Horse- and cattle-thieves, killers, escaped convicts, came and went ominous birds of passage, the scavengers of war and banditry. The Spider was lean, with legs warped by long years in the saddle.
It was his to see that everything ran smoothly, and though the depredations of cattle-thieves could hardly come under the heading of his responsibilities, yet no employer can resist the temptation of visiting his chagrin on the head of his most trusted servant. The hue and cry had been in progress for several weeks, and as yet no result of a hopeful nature had been obtained.
He had come and gone a veritable firebrand, and the hot trail he had left behind him was smouldering in a manner unhealthy for the cattle-thieves. When Peter Blunt entered the saloon it was to receive McLagan's tale from all sides.
"The Police ride hard these days?" said Crowfoot in his own language, after a long silence. "Oh, sometimes," replied Cameron carelessly, "when cattle-thieves ride too." "Huh?" inquired Crowfoot innocently. "Yes, some Indians forget all that the Police have done for them, and like coyotes steal upon the cattle at night and drive them over cut-banks."
He had made long forced marches to succor improvident settlers starving far out in the wilds; in the fierce heat of summer he made his patrols, watching the progress of the grass-fires, sternly exacting from the ranchers the plowing of the needed guards; and cattle-thieves prudently avoided the district that he ruled with firm benevolence.
It was some combustible matter that blazed up fiercely, sending huge volumes of flames out of the door and lighting up the courtyard, which was now occupied only by American troopers. The cattle-thieves had behaved just as they did when Bob Owens so gallantly attacked a portion of their number at the squatter's cabin.
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