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That probably meant a big herd of cattle crossing to the Pecos Valley on the Chisum Trail that led to Fort Stanton. The riders were likely just throwing the beeves from the bed-ground to the trail. The boy waited to make sure of their line of travel. Presently he spoke aloud, after the fashion of the plainsman who spends much time alone in the saddle.
And it was a firmly established habit in Lincoln County to mind your own business; so the project, while it became generally known, created no excitement. The Man from Bitter Creek went up the river to the neighborhood of Fort Sumner when John Slaughter's herd drew near the Chisum ranch. He made his camp and bided the arrival of the cattle; but that arrival did not materialize.
The soldiers of the latter post, and the Indians of the Mescalero reservation near by, needed supplies. There were others besides John Chisum who might need a beef contract now and then, and cattle to fill it.
Frank Baker, murdered by his former friend, Billy the Kid, at Agua Negra, near the Capitans, was part Cherokee in blood, a well-spoken and pleasant man and a good cow hand. He was drawn into this fighting through his work for Chisum as a hired man. Baker was said to be connected with a good family in Virginia, who looked up the facts of his death.
John Chisum drove the first herds up the Pecos trail to the territorial market. He held at one time perhaps eighty thousand head of cattle under his brand of the "Long I" and "jinglebob." Moreover, he had powers of attorney from a great many cow men in Texas and lower New Mexico, authorizing him to take up any trail cattle which he found under their respective brands.
Middleton, Wayt, and Hendry Brown there left the Kid's gang, telling him that he would get killed before long; but the latter laughed at them and returned to his old grounds, alternating between Lincoln and Fort Sumner, and now and then stealing some cows from the Chisum herd.
At the close of the civil war, Texas was full of unbranded and unowned cattle. Out of the town of Paris, Texas, which was founded by his father, came one John Chisum one of the most typical cow men that ever lived. Bold, fearless, shrewd, unscrupulous, genial, magnetic, he was the man of all others to occupy a kingdom which had heretofore had no ruler.
And now, if you want to hear about the last three years, I'll spin the yarn for you." Dick Forrest had been right when he told his guardians that his mind was acid and would bite into the books. Never was there such an education, and he directed it himself but not without advice. He had learned the trick of hiring brains from his father and from John Chisum of the Jingle-bob.
He liked this no better than King Chisum liked the little cow men on his flanks in the Seven Rivers country. Things were ripening still more rapidly for trouble. Presently, the immediate cause made its appearance. There had been a former partner and friend of Major Murphy in the post-tradership at Fort Stanton, Colonel Emil Fritz, who established the Fritz ranch, a few miles below Lincoln.
That was never proved, for, as a matter of fact, no county books were ever kept! McSween started the first set ever known there. At this time there was working for Tunstall on the Feliz ranch the noted desperado, Billy the Kid, who a short time formerly had worked for John Chisum.
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