two years Billy's senior, who also attended the same school, but whose
parents were too poor to spare him a horse from the farm to ride.

This boy was Billy's chum, and as they shared together their noonday
meal, the pony was also shared, for the boy rode behind my hero to and
from school, being called for each morning and dropped off near his
cabin on the return trip.

Owing to the lawlessness of the country Mr. Cody allowed his son to go
armed, knowing that he fully understood the use of weapons, and his
pistol Billy always hung up with his hat upon reaching the log cabin,
where, figuratively speaking, the young idea was taught to shoot.

The weapon was a revolver, a Colt's, which at that time was not in
common use, and Billy prized it above his books and pony even and always
kept it in perfect order.

One day Rascal, his pony, pulled up the lariat pin which held him out
upon the prairie and scampered for home, and Billy and Davie Dunn, his
chum, were forced to "hoof it," as the western slang goes, home.

A storm was coming on, and to escape it the boys turned off the main
trail and took refuge in a log cabin which was said to be haunted by the
ghosts of its former occupants; at least they had been all mysteriously
murdered there one night and were buried in the shadow of the cabin, and
people gave the place a wide berth.

It was situated back in a piece of heavy timber and looked dismal
enough, but Billy proposed that they should go there, more out of sheer
bravado to show he was not afraid than to escape a ducking, for which he