"'If you know anything about the locality, disposition, or secretiveness
of this here Black Bill,' says he, in a severe dialect, 'you are amiable
to the law in not reporting it.'

"'I heard a fence-rider say,' says I, in a desultory kind of voice,
'that a Mexican told a cowboy named Jake over at Pidgin's store on the
Nueces that he heard that Black Bill had been seen in Matamoras by a
sheepman's cousin two weeks ago.'

"'Tell you what I'll do, Tight Mouth,' says the captain, after looking
me over for bargains. 'If you put us on so we can scoop Black Bill, I'll
pay you a hundred dollars out of my own--out of our own--pockets. That's
liberal,' says he. 'You ain't entitled to anything. Now, what do you
say?'

"'Cash down now?' I asks.

"The captain has a sort of discussion with his helpmates, and they all
produce the contents of their pockets for analysis. Out of the general
results they figured up $102.30 in cash and $31 worth of plug tobacco.

"'Come nearer, capitan meeo,' says I, 'and listen.' He so did.

"'I am mighty poor and low down in the world,' says I. 'I am working for
twelve dollars a month trying to keep a lot of animals together whose
only thought seems to be to get asunder. Although,' says I, 'I regard
myself as some better than the State of South Dakota, it's a come-down
to a man who has heretofore regarded sheep only in the form of chops.
I'm pretty far reduced in the world on account of foiled ambitions and