their three lonely "Window Sash" cattle. We had gained the point we
wanted, and now in case of any trouble, during inspection or at night,
we had the river behind us to catch our herd. We paid little attention
to the threat of our disappointed callers, but several times Straw's
remarks as to the character of the residents of those hills to the
westward recurred to my mind. I was young, but knew enough, instead of
asking foolish questions, to keep mum, though my eyes and ears drank
in everything. Before we had been on the trail over an hour, we met
two men riding down the trail towards the river. Meeting us, they
turned and rode along with our foreman, some distance apart from the
herd, for nearly an hour, and curiosity ran freely among us boys
around the herd as to who they might be. Finally Flood rode forward to
the point men and gave the order to throw off the trail and make a
short drive that afternoon. Then in company with the two strangers, he
rode forward to overtake our wagon, and we saw nothing more of him
until we reached camp that evening. This much, however, our point man
was able to get from our foreman: that the two men were members of a
detachment of Rangers who had been sent as a result of information
given by the first herd over the trail that year. This herd, which had
passed some twenty days ahead of us, had met with a stampede below the
river, and on reaching Abilene had reported the presence of rustlers
preying on through herds at the crossing of the Colorado.

On reaching camp that evening with the herd, we found ten of the
Rangers as our guests for the night. The detachment was under a
corporal named Joe Hames, who had detailed the two men we had met
during the afternoon to scout this crossing. Upon the information
afforded by our foreman about the would-be trail cutters, these
scouts, accompanied by Flood, had turned back to advise the Ranger
squad, encamped in a secluded spot about ten miles northeast of the