The Sunset Trail Read online

  CHAPTER II

  THAT TRANSACTION IN PONIES

  Aunt Nettie Dawson, because of her tenderness of heart and the hardacridities of her tongue, had made for herself a place in the popularesteem. The well-to-do and healthy feared her for her sarcasms, whileupon the sick she descended in the guise of an unmixed blessing. Thosewho mourned, and by whose hearths sat trouble, found in her the shadowof a great rock in a weary land.

  Cimarron Bill was the personal nephew of Aunt Nettie, the otherinhabitants of Dodge being nephews and nieces by brevet, and it was toCimarron Bill that Mr. Masterson was indebted for the advantage of AuntNettie's acquaintance.

  "She's some frosty, Bat," explained Cimarron Bill, in apology for thefrigid sort of Aunt Nettie's reception, "she's shore some frosty. But ifyou-all was ever to get shot up, now, for mebby holdin' four aces, orbecause you had become a drawback to a quadrille, she'd nacherally jumpin an' nuss you like you was worth savin'."

  Mr. Masterson and Cimarron Bill had met for the first time the Autumnbefore, and their friendship came about in this fashion. Sun City, athriving metropolis, consisting of a tavern and a store, lay far to thesouth of Dodge and close against the Indian Territory line. Mr.Masterson, coming north from the buffalo range, rode into Sun City lateone October afternoon, and since his affairs were not urgent decided toremain till morning.

  Mr. Stumps, proprietor of the Palace Hotel, being the tavern aforesaid,wore an uneasy look when Mr. Masterson avouched his intention to tarry,and submitted that his rooms were full.

  "Leastwise," observed the doubtful Mr. Stumps, "all three beds is fullbut one; an' that is took by Cimarron Bill."

  "Is this Bill person here?" queried Mr. Masterson.

  "Well he ain't exactly here none just now," responded Mr. Stumps, "buthe's liable to come pirootin' in. He p'inted out this mornin' forTascosa; but he's a heap uncertain that a-way, an' it wouldn't surpriseme none if he was to change his mind. All I know is he says as he ridesaway, 'Don't let no shorthorn have my room, Mr. Stumps, as I may need itmyse'f a whole lot; an' in case I do I don't want to be obleeged tobootcher no harmless stranger for its possession.'"

  "All the same," said Mr. Masterson with asperity, "I reckon I'll takethat room."

  "Thar'll be an uprisin' if Cimarron Bill comes back," said Mr. Stumps,as he led Mr. Masterson to the second floor.

  "You won't be in it," replied Mr. Masterson confidently. "I won't askyou to help put it down."

  Mr. Masterson was searching his war-bags for a clean blue shirt, meaningto do honour to Sun City at its evening meal. Suddenly a youth of hisown age appeared in the door. So cat-foot had been his approach thateven the trained ear of Mr. Masterson was given no creaking notice ofhis coming up the stair. The youthful stranger was equipped of a dancingeye and a Colt's-45, and Mr. Masterson by some mighty instinct knew himfor Cimarron Bill. The question of identity, however, was instantly madeclear.

  "My name's Cimarron Bill," remarked the youthful stranger, carefullycovering Mr. Masterson with his weapon, "an' I'd like to ask whatever beyou-all doin' in my apartments?" Then, waiving reply, he went on: "Thar,don't answer; take the short cut out of the window. I'm fretted, an' Iwants to be alone."

  Mr. Masterson, to facilitate those proposed improvements in his garb,had unbuckled his pistol and laid it on the bed. Cimarron Bill, withmilitant genius, stepped in between Mr. Masterson and his artillery.Under these convincing circumstances the suggested window seemed the onesolution, and Mr. Masterson adopted it. The twelve-foot leap to the softprairie grass was nothing; and since Cimarron Bill, with a fine contemptfor consequences in nowise calculated to prove his prudence, pitched Mr.Masterson's belt and pistol, as well as his war-bags, after him, thelatter was driven to confess that erratic personage a fair and fearlessgentleman. The tacit confession, however, served as no restraint uponhis movements, and seizing his weapon Mr. Masterson in his turn wentcat-foot up the stair. As had Cimarron Bill before him, he toweredpresently in the narrow doorway, his steady muzzle to the fore.

  "Jump!" quoth Mr. Masterson, and Cimarron Bill leaped from the samewindow which so lately had been the avenue of Mr. Masterson's departure.

  Cimarron Bill did not have the luck which had attended the gymnastics ofMr. Masterson, and sprained his ankle. Whereupon, Cimarron Bill sat upand called for a glass of liquor, solacing himself the while with evilwords. Following the drink, Mr. Stumps negotiated a truce between histwo guests, and Mr. Masterson came down and shook Cimarron Bill by thehand. "What I like about you," said Cimarron Bill, as he met Mr.Masterson's courtesy halfway, "is your persistency. An' as you seem sorto' took with them apartments of mine, on second thought we'll ockepy 'emin yoonison."

  Mr. Masterson and Cimarron Bill became as Damon and Pythias. In themonths that followed they were partners, killing buffaloes and raidingIndians for ponies, share and share alike. Mr. Masterson came finally toknow Aunt Nettie. And because Cimarron Bill loved her, he also lovedher, and suffered in humble silence from her caustic tongue as did hismate. For was not the fortune of one the fortune of the other? and werethey not equal partners in all that came their way?

  Cimarron Bill's most glaring fault was a complete inaptitude forcommerce. It was this defect that taught him, while at play in Mr.Webster's Alamo saloon, to place a value on "queens-up" so far inadvance of their merits, that in one disastrous moment he was sweptclean of his last dollar and his last pony. For a buffalo hunter thus tobe set afoot was a serious blow; more, it smelled of disgrace. YourWestern gentleman, dismounted and obliged to a painful pedestrianism,has been ever a symbol of the abject; also his standing is shaken inwhat social circles he affects. These several truths were abundantlyknown to Cimarron Bill, and on the morning after his bankruptcy hebegged the use of a pony from Mr. Masterson with a purpose ofstraightening up his prostrate destinies.

  "I'll ride down," explained Cimarron Bill, easily, "to the divide betweenMedicine Lodge Creek an' the Cimarron, an' the first Cheyenne who comesteeterin' along on a proper pony ought to fit me out. I won't be afootlong enough to wear out my moccasins; you can bet a blue stack on that!"

  Cimarron Bill's plan to remount himself was one feasible enough. True,as stated in a previous chapter, there existed an official peace betweenthe Cheyennes and their paleface brothers. Unofficially, it was thequenchless practice of both sides to kill and scalp each other, wheneveran opportunity linked with secrecy and safety was presented. It was thepleasure of the Cheyennes to fall upon isolated camps of buffalo huntersand exterminate them; the broad prairies, had they spoken, would havetold a hundred such red stories. By way of reprisal, the enterprisingpaleface wiped out what Cheyennes crossed his path. Moreover, it was thedelight of the paleface, when not otherwise engaged, to raid a Cheyennevillage, and drive off the ponies. The ponies, saleable as hot cakes,went at thirty dollars the head in Dodge; wherefore the practice, apartfrom the thrill and joy thereof, was not without its profit. CimarronBill, however, did not contemplate a raid; what he aimed at was a singlepony, and there were safer, even if more sanguinary methods by which asingle pony might be arrived at.

  Bear Shield's band of Cheyennes had pitched their tepees on theCimarron, thirty miles to the south of Sun City. The region was a fairhunting ground, rife of buffalo. The attraction to Bear Shield's people,however, was Sun City itself. What was a thirty-mile ride to a Cheyenne,with nothing upon his mind but firewater? The latter refreshment abodeprivily to his call in Sun City, and he might purchase at the rate of apint for a buffalo robe. So brisk was trade that every day from one to adozen Cheyennes, whose hearts were low and thirsty, rode into Sun City,each with a modest pack of robes, to presently ride forth robeless butrapturous.

  Southward from Sun City ran the trail for that point on the Cimarronwhere Bear Shield and his tribesmen, their squaws and pappooses and dogsand ponies, lived and moved and had their aboriginal being. As the trailcrossed Medicine Lodge Creek it crowded the base of a thickly woodedknoll, at the back of which a bald precipice fell away for a sheer twohundred
feet.

  It was the wont of that paleface, who felt pressed upon by the need of aCheyenne scalp or pony or both, to lie in hopeful ambush on the woodedknoll. He would not grow weary with much watching; his reward was sureto appear within the hour, in the shape of a drunken Cheyenne, reelingin his saddle with the robe-bought hospitality of Sun City fifteen milesaway. The sullen Sharp's would speak, and the bibulous Cheyenne goheadlong. Then the paleface who had sniped him would mount his own ponywith speed, and round up the riderless pony of that Cheyenne who hadbeen. Once the Cheyenne's pony was secured, the paleface would scalp andstrip his victim; then, using his lariat, he would drag what he didn'twant to the precipice adverted to, and toss it over.

  Full two hundred leading citizens of Bear Shield's village had beenblotted out, before the Cheyennes became aware of their fate and thegrim manner of it; for the paleface never exposed his ambush by lettingany Cheyenne get away. If the census of the Cheyenne party exceeded thecount of rifles on the knoll, they were permitted to ride by in innocentdrunkenness, unconscious of the death they had grazed. As for what deadCheyennes went over the cliff, certain coyotes and ravens, educated of aprevailing plenty to haunt the spot, would in an hour remove the lasttrace of their taking off. Full two hundred Cheyennes, the flower ofBear Shield's band, were sent to the happy hunting grounds, at the baseof the wooded knoll on Medicine Lodge Creek, before their wonderingrelatives solved the puzzle of their disappearance. Once the gruesomeriddle was read, the Cheyennes as a nation painted for war. It was thenthat Bear Shield drove North like a storm, leaving Sun City a memory,and killing out the last injurious paleface for forty miles around.That, however, is to one side of our narrative, which has to do withCimarron Bill, about to re-establish himself as a mounted and thereforereputable member of society.

  Mr. Masterson sought to dissuade Cimarron Bill from his enterprise. Itwas not that he objected to the other's vigorous scheme of gaining aremount; he wasn't so tenderly given towards Cheyennes as all that. Thegovernment, in favor of appearances, might pretend to preserve theCheyenne; but Mr. Masterson knew that in reality no close season forCheyennes existed more than it did for gray wolves. But the wooded knollon Medicine Lodge Creek was distant; to go and come meant days; theprofit, one pony, was slight for so much effort and time and travel. Mr.Masterson, in comparison with the investment, pointed out the meagresort of the reward. Also he offered to give Cimarron Bill a pony.

  Mr. Masterson's arguments availed nothing; Cimarron Bill was in thattemper of diligent virtue, common with folk who have just finished aseason of idleness and wicked revelry. He declined Mr. Masterson's pony;he would win a pony for himself.

  "No se'f-respectin' gent," observed Cimarron Bill, "can accept giftsfrom another gent. As you sow so shall you reap; havin' recklessly lostmy pony, I must now win out another by froogality an' honest industry.Besides it ain't jest the pony; thar's the skelp--worth twenty-fivedollars, it is, at the Dodge Bank. That's a bet you overlooks. With thatpony, an' them twenty-five dollars for the skelp, I can begin lifeanoo."

  "Then," returned Mr. Masterson, disgustedly, "if you're going to playthe fool, and waste five days and ride seventy-five miles and back toget a thirty-dollar pony and a twenty-five-dollar scalp, I might as wellbe a fool mate to you, and go along."

  "No, you stay here," expostulated Cimarron Bill. "I might get downed; inwhich event it'll be for you to look after Aunt Nettie."

  Cimarron Bill, despite his restless ways and careless want offorethought, always provided for Aunt Nettie. This was no work ofdifficulty; Aunt Nettie's needs were neither numerous nor expensive,and, since a gentleman of the lively accuracy of Cimarron Bill could inthe season kill and cure for his share fifty dollars' worth of buffalorobes a day, they were readily overcome.

  "One hundred shots," Cimarron Bill was wont to say, "from my oldeight-squar', an' Aunt Nettie is fixed for one plumb year."

  Mr. Masterson was about to remonstrate against remaining in Dodge, butCimarron Bill interrupted.

  "As a favor to me, Bat," he said, "merely as a favor to me. I won't begone a week; an' I'll feel easier thinkin' you're left to look afterAunt Nettie in case of accidents. It's inside o' the possible, d'ye see,for this B'ar Shield outfit to get me; an Injun, now an' then, does wina pot, you know."

  Mr. Masterson made over to the use of Cimarron Bill a chestnut broncho,famous for bottom and bad habits. After he had cantered away, Mr.Masterson reflected uneasily on Cimarron Bill's anxiety over AuntNettie, the same being out of common. Mr. Masterson thought this aportent of bad luck. The notion made Mr. Masterson nervous; whenCimarron Bill had been absent a fortnight and no news of him, thenervousness grew into alarm.

  "I wonder," mused Mr. Masterson, gloomily, "if those Bear Shieldoutcasts have bumped him off. He was that careless, Bill was, some suchturn might have been waiting in the deck for him any deal at all," andMr. Masterson sighed.

  Mr. Trask's freight teams came sauntering into Dodge from Fort Elliot;they might have cut the trail of the missing Cimarron Bill, and Mr.Masterson sought the Trask mule-skinners for information. They hadfreighted through Sun City, indeed their route ran by the wooded knollso fatal to Cheyennes; not one, however, had heard sound or beheld signof the vanished Cimarron Bill. At that, Mr. Masterson buckled on hissix-shooter, thrust his rifle into the scabbard that garnished hissaddle, and while the frost was on the short dry buffalo grass oneDecember morning, sped southward for news.

  At Sun City, Mr. Stumps of the Palace Hotel bore testimony that CimarronBill had passed one night at his caravansary, making merry, and departedfull of confidence and Old Jordan in the morning.

  "But he didn't pack no outside liquor with him," observed theexperienced Mr. Stumps, who was capable of a deduction, "an' what jag hecarried would have been worn plumb away long before ever he reachedMedicine Lodge Creek."

  Mr. Stumps averred that this was the last and all he knew of CimarronBill.

  Mr. Masterson might have gone thirty miles further and interviewed BearShield himself. That befeathered chieftain, however, was a savage ofprudence and counsel, and no one to boast of paleface scalps, though athousand were drying in the lodges of his people. No, nothing could begathered from the Cheyennes themselves. It was less trouble, and quiteas sagacious, for Mr. Masterson to believe that Cimarron Bill had fallena Cheyenne sacrifice, and abandon investigation. Adjusting it,therefore, in his own mind that Cimarron Bill had perished, Mr.Masterson started for Dodge, cogitating vengeance.

  Mr. Masterson, while sad, was not to be shocked by a thing socommonplace as death, even though the one fallen had been his ownblanket-mate. And he blamed no one--neither Cimarron Bill nor theCheyenne who had taken his hair. Such events were as the certainincidents of existence, and might be counted on in their coming.Yesterday it had been the fate of Cimarron Bill; it might be his ownto-morrow. Meanwhile, by every Western rule, it was his instant businessto take a price from the Cheyennes, in scalps and ponies, for the lostlife.

  And there was Aunt Nettie. Mr. Masterson recalled the final urgency ofCimarron Bill's exhortations to look after her in case he neverreturned.

  "And I surely will," ruminated Mr. Masterson. "When he said that, Billmust have felt, even if he couldn't see, the cloud that hung over thefuture."

  Mr. Masterson deemed it his duty to acquaint Aunt Nettie with the demiseof Cimarron Bill; at the terror of such a mission he shook in hissaddle. Slowly he rode up to the little three-room cottage where AuntNettie made her home.

  "Miss Dawson," began Mr. Masterson, for while the lady was "Aunt Nettie"in the conversation of Dodge, she was invariably "Miss Dawson" to herface, "Miss Dawson, I'm afraid Bill's dead." Mr. Masterson faltered ashe spoke these words. "If I knew how," he went on, "to break theinformation soft, I'd do it; but such delicate plays are beyond myreach. All I can do is ride in and say that in my judgment Bear Shield'soutfit has downed him."

  "Oh!" retorted Aunt Nettie, retaining, with hand on hip, that attitudeof scorn which she had assumed as she listened to Mr. Master
son, "oh,all you can do is ride in an' say that in your jedgment"--the word cameoff Aunt Nettie's tongue most witheringly--"B'ar Shield's outfit hasdowned my Billy! Well then let me tell you this, Bat Masterson; tharain't no Cheyenne ever painted his face who could corral my Billy. Thar,_vamos_; I ain't got no time to waste talkin' to children in theirteens--which you ain't seen twenty none as yet, Bat Masterson--who can'tthink of nothin' better to do than come pesterin' into camp with atheery that them B'ar Shield felons has bushwhacked my Billy."

  "But, Miss Dawson," urged Mr. Masterson, "what I wanted----"

  "No matter what you wanted," interrupted Aunt Nettie. "You get yourselftogether an' pull your freight! If, as you says, in your jedgmentBilly's gone, what be you doin' in Dodge, I'd like to ask? Why ain't youback on the Cimarron gatherin' ha'r an' ponies, an' gettin' even forBilly? Thar, line out o' here! While I'm throwin' away time on you-all,my bread's burnin'. I can smell it plumb here."

  "Aunt Nettie," thought Mr. Masterson, as he withdrew, "is goin' to be adifficult lady to take care of. It's four for one, when I have to offerher money, or try to hang up a hindquarter of buffalo in her kitchen,she'll chunk me up with stove-wood, or anything else that's loose andlittle, and handy at the time. However, it'll have to be gone throughwith; Cimarron Bill is dead, and his last word was for me to look outfor Aunt Nettie."

  As he swung into the saddle, following his visit to Aunt Nettie, a flushof shame and anger, which even the terrors of that formidable spinstercould not suppress, showed through the bronze on Mr. Masterson's face.The taunt about being in Dodge when he ought to be over on the Cimarron,harvesting a vengeance, had stirred him deeply. To have it intimatedthat his courage was slow, and his friendship cool, wore sorely on thesoul of Mr. Masterson. It was the harder to bear when flung from thetongue of a woman; for his hands were tied, and his mouth was closedagainst resentment. "One thing," thought Mr. Masterson, by way ofself-consolation, "the man never made a moccasin track in Dodge whocould have said as much and got away. Aunt Nettie's right though; Iought to be evening up for Billy right now."

  Time stood a week later, and along the shallow Cimarron--as in everyother region civilised or savage--it was Christmas night. The weather wasmild, the bare earth without frost, while on the slow wind creeping infrom the north there rode the moist odour of snow. The moon, old and onthe wane, was swinging low in the western sky, and what dim lights itoffered were made more dim by a constant drift of clouds across itsyellow face.

  Scattered along the north bank of the Cimarron, a straggling mile ormore, stood the tepees of Bear Shield's people. It was well beyondmidnight, and nothing vocal about the camp save the occasional shortyelp of a dog, made melancholy by the hour's lonesomeness. Now and thenan ember of some dying fire burned for a fierce moment, and then blinkedout. Mr. Masterson, riding slowly down the opposite bank, and takingshrewd care to keep deep within the shadow of the woods, countedseventy-two lodges--a probable population of seven hundred and twenty,for a plainsman's census argues ten to a lodge.

  Mr. Masterson had located the band of ponies, which made up the richesof Bear Shield, late in the dull gray afternoon, while he lay hidden ina dry arroyo. As it grew darker, he had crept nearer, keeping ever thelocation of the ponies which, in a rambling, ragged herd, were grazingup the wind. Mr. Masterson, on the south bank of the Cimarron, washeedfully to leeward of the herd; a proper piece of caution, for anIndian pony, at the earliest paleface taint to alarm the breeze, willscream like a wronged panther.

  Arriving at the place where he meant to ford the river and begin hisdrive, Mr. Masterson halted for a cloud of unusual size and thickness toblanket the blurred radiance of the dwindling moon. Such a cloud was onits way; from where it hung curtain-wise on the horizon it should taketen minutes before its eclipse of the interfering moon began.

  While he waited Mr. Masterson removed his sombrero and fastened it backof the cantle by a saddle-string. Also, he unstrapped his blanket andwrapped it about his shoulders, for it was part of Mr. Masterson'sstrategy to play the Cheyenne for this raid. It was among the chancesthat he would run across an Indian herder or meet with some belatedsavage coming into camp. The latter was not likely, however, since thelast journey an Indian will make is a night journey. The night is sacredto spirits, and he hesitates to violate it by being abroad; in the daythe spirits sleep.

  While Mr. Masterson waited deep beneath the cottonwoods, a splash fromthe river's brink would now and again show where the bank was caving, orthe crackling of branches, and the profound flapping of great wingsoverhead, mark how some wild turkey--a heavy old gobbler, probably--hadbroken down a bough with sheer stress of fat, and was saving himselffrom a fall. Far away could be heard the faltering cry of a coyote,bewailing a jackrabbit which he had not caught.

  That thick cloud, waited for, began to encroach on the moon, and Mr.Masterson, his pony stepping as though walking on a world of eggs,headed for the river. The place had been well considered; there was notall bank off which to plump, but instead a gradual sandy descent.

  The pony walked into the water as silently as a ghost. The currentrippled and rose in petulant chuckles of protest about the pony's legs;but, since its deepest was no more than to the hocks, Mr. Mastersonhonoured it with scant attention.

  Among Bear Shield's ponies was a giant mule, renegade and runaway fromsome government train. This long-eared traitor remembered his days ofburden, and the thing to please him least was the sight or sound orscent of a paleface. The paleface was the symbol of thralldom and sorestripes, and the old bellsharp desired none of his company.

  By stress of brain, which counts among mules as among men, the oldbellsharp had risen to the rank of herd leader, and the Bear Shieldponies would drill and wheel and go charging off at his signal. As Mr.Masterson and his pony scrambled up the bank a flaw in the wind befell,and a horrifying whiff of the stealthy invader reached the oldbellsharp. Thereupon, he lifted up his voice in clangorous condemnation,after the manner of his species. The harsh cry echoed up and down theslumbrous Cimarron like an outcry of destruction.

  With that cry for his cue, Mr. Masterson drove home the spurs and begana rapid round-up of the startled ponies. At the warning call of the oldbellsharp, the herd members came rushing towards him. Placing himself attheir head, his "hee-haw" of alarm still ringing like a bugle, he borethem away at a thunderous gallop for the tepees.

  Hard at the hocks of the flying battalion came Mr. Masterson. The outfitswept through Bear Shield's village for its entire length, Mr. Mastersonlying low along his pony's neck and letting his blanket flap in the windbravely, for purposes of deception. After the ponies, charged Mr.Masterson; after Mr. Masterson, charged a riotous brigade of dogs; theuproar might have been heard as far as Crooked Creek.

  As the mad stampede swept on, ever and anon a pony more blind or moreclumsy than his fellows would bump into a lodge. At that, an indignantCheyenne would tear aside the lodge-flap, protrude his outraged head,and curse the ponies aboriginally. Observing the blanketed Mr.Masterson, the savage would go back to bed, gratefully taking him forsome public-spirited neighbour who was striving to return the ponies totheir grazing ground and inspire them with normal peace.

  The flying ponies--the vociferous old bellsharp having fallen to therear, through lack of speed--wheeled against a thick clump of cottonwood,and then broke north into the open. Their fever of fear was subsiding,they were taking a more modest pace, and Mr. Masterson began turning inthe corners, and closing up the flanks, of the retreating band. He madeno effort to crowd or press, but gave them every encouragement to regaintheir confidence, and moderate their flight. Presently the herd wasjogging comfortably; and because the wind was in their faces they werefurnished no disquieting notice of Mr. Masterson's paleface identitythrough the medium of their noses.

  The ponies had traveled twenty minutes, and were cleverly bunched, whenMr. Masterson made a discovery. Off to the right in the dull half-darkhe beheld a figure, blanketed, mounted, riding like the wind, and busywith the straggler
s as they pointed out of the herd. Like a flash, Mr.Masterson whipped his rifle from its scabbard. Throwing the blanketaside, to free his hands and arms, he fell a trifle to the rear, andbegan edging towards the stranger.

  From his riding, and because he seemed so willingly bent on sending theponies northward, Mr. Masterson felt assured that the stranger was awhite man. The expiring moon threw a last parallel ray along the surfaceof the plains, and Mr. Masterson saw that the stranger's pony was achestnut. Also it had the hard and bitter gait of Alazan, the broncowherewith he had equipped Cimarron Bill when that lost one issued southfrom Dodge to his wiping out.

  Mr. Masterson drew nearer; of a truth the jolty pony was Alazan! Whothen was the stranger? Could he, by some miracle of heaven, be CimarronBill? Mr. Masterson gave a curlew's whistle, which had been a signalbetween him and Cimarron Bill. At the sound the stranger wheeled uponhim.

  Mr. Masterson pulled up his pony; the sharp cluck! cluck! of the buffalogun clipped the night air as he cocked it, for Mr. Masterson was aprudent man. The stranger, sitting fearlessly straight in his stirrups,bore down upon him with speed. Mr. Masterson watched him with thenarrowed gaze of a lynx; as much as he might tell in the night, therewas no weapon in the stranger's hands.

  "Howdy, Bat!" cried the stranger, as he came up with a great rush. "I'veknowed you for an hour."

  Then Mr. Masterson let down the hammer of his Sharp's, slammed it backin its scabbard beneath his saddle-flap, and taking the stranger in abear-hug, fairly tore him from the saddle. The stranger was CimarronBill; and in his youth Mr. Masterson was sentimental.

  "Where have you been these weeks?" cried Mr. Masterson.

  "I'll tell you later," returned Cimarron Bill. "We'd better clot upthese ponies an' begin the drive, or they'll get our wind an' stampedefor B'ar Shield's village."

  It was beginning to snow--great soft clinging flakes, and each like a wetcold pinch of wool! The snow storm was both good and bad; it made itdifficult to handle the ponies, but it subtracted from the chances ofBear Shield's successful pursuit.

  Mr. Masterson and Cimarron Bill, one on the right and one on the leftflank of the herd, riding to and fro like setter dogs quartering forbirds, drove on throughout a hard four hours. They broke eastward toavoid Sun City; for it would have been impolite to bring those poniesthrough hamlet or ranch, and so threaten it with Bear Shield's anger.

  With the first of dawn the tired riders, having brought the bunch into astretch of country choice for that purpose, halted to make aninspection. The snow had ceased to fall, and the sun coming up gave themlight enough to tell good from evil as presented in the shape of ponies.While Mr. Masterson held the herd, Cimarron Bill commenced cutting outthe spent and worthless ones. When the weeding was over, there remainedone hundred and thirty head, and the worst among them worth thirtydollars in the Dodge corrals. Throwing the riff-raff loose, Mr.Masterson and Cimarron Bill again took up their travels at a stiff roadgait. They were forty-five miles from Dodge; worn as they were, theyshould still reach the Arkansas and Dodge by nightfall.

  "And now," quoth Mr. Masterson, when they were straightened away for thenorth, "what have you been doing? Aunt Nettie was scared speechless. Shethought the Cheyennes had run their brand on you."

  Cimarron Bill's adventures were laid open. Ten miles out from Sun Cityhe had crossed up with Red River Tom of the Bar-8-bar ranch. Thatwell-informed boy had told him of a dance to be given three nights away,in the new camp-house of the B-in-a-Box outfit. "No common fandango,"explained Cimarron Bill, "but the real thing, with people comin' from asfar away as Tascosa an' Fort Sill. Nacherrally, I decided to attend.That Cheyenne I was after, an' his pony, could wait; the dancecouldn't."

  Cimarron Bill, continuing, told how he had cut across country for thehome ranch of the B-in-a-Box. He arrived in good time, that is to sayfour hours prior to the fiddlers, which, as he expressed it, gave himspace wherein "to liquor up" and get in proper key for the festivalimpending. While engaged upon these preliminaries he was shot in the legby a fellow-guest with whom he disagreed.

  "You see," explained Cimarron Bill, "this outlaw was a Texas ranger, an'after about six drinks I started to tell him what I thought of a prairiedog who would play policeman that a-way, for thirty dollars a month an'furnish his own hoss. One word leads to another an' the last one to theguns, an' the next news is I get plugged in the off hind laig. Iwouldn't have cared so much," concluded Cimarron Bill, in mournfulmeditation over his mishap, "only he shot me before the first dance."

  Cimarron Bill had been laid up in the new camp-house of the hospitableB-in-a-Box. Being able to mount and ride away, three days before Mr.Masterson encountered him, he had deemed it expedient to make a drivingraid on Bear Shield's village on his journey home, and carry off ahandful of ponies. Thus, by a coincidence of pony-raiding impulse, thetwo had been restored to one another.

  "For you see," said Cimarron Bill, "I was still shy a hoss, the same aswhen I started out of Dodge."

  "All the same," observed Mr. Masterson, severely, "you ought to havesent word to Aunt Nettie."

  "Send Aunt Nettie word!" exclaimed Cimarron Bill. "I wasn't that locoed!Aunt Nettie would have been down on me like a fallin' star! Shore! she'dhave deescended on that B-in-a-Box outfit like a mink on a settin' hen!I saveyed a heap better than to send Aunt Nettie word."

  Vast was the joy of Dodge as Mr. Masterson and Cimarron Bill rode inwith those Bear Shield ponies; prodigious was the trade-hubbub when,over at Mr. Trask's corrals--Mr. Wright officiating as auctioneer--one byone the herd was struck down to the highest bidder. Under the doublestimulation of the holidays and the ponies, commerce received a boom,the like of which had not before been known in the trade annals ofDodge. In proof whereof, not alone Mr. Short at the Long Branch but Mr.Kelly at the Alhambra declared that never since either of them last sawthe Missouri, had so much money been changed in at roulette and farobankin any similar space of time. Mr. Wright of the outfitting storeconfirmed these tales of commercial gorgeousness, and Mr. Masterson andCimarron Bill were greeted and treated as public benefactors. Meanwhile,far away on the ravished Cimarron, Bear Shield was making wrathfulmedicine, and dancing the dances and singing the songs of him who hasbeen robbed.

  "Thar, you Bat Masterson!" exclaimed Aunt Nettie, as she heaped high thebanquet board before him and her prodigal nephew. "Which it goes to showhow feeble-witted you be. Yere you comes ghost-dancin' 'round with ayarn about my Billy bein' killed an' skelped! I told you then, what younow have the livin' sense to see, I hope, that thar was never theCheyenne painted his face who could down my Billy, B'ar Shield himse'fnot barred."