ropes. Somehow I knew if they once hog-tied me I would never get another
chance. Better dead now than helpless in the morning, for what that old
buzzard might want of me.

One of them tossed a loop at me. I struck it aside and sailed in.

It had always been my profound and contemptuous belief that I could lick
any four Mexicans. Now I had to take that back. I could not. But I gave
the man argument, and by the time they had my elbows lashed behind me
and my legs tied to the legs of one of those big solid chairs they like
to name as "Mission style," I had marked them up and torn their pretty
clothes and smashed a lot of junk around the place and generally got
them so mad they would have knifed me in a holy second if it had not
been for Old Man Hooper. The latter held up the lamp where it wouldn't
get smashed and admonished them in no uncertain terms that he wanted me
alive and comparatively undamaged. Oh, sure! they mussed me up, too. I
wasn't very pretty, either.

The bravos withdrew muttering curses, as the story books say; and after
Hooper had righted the table and stuck the lamp on it, and taken a good
look at my bonds, he withdrew also.

Most of my time until the next thing occurred was occupied in figuring
on all the things that might happen to me. One thing I acknowledged to
myself right off the reel: the Mexicans had sure trussed me up for
further orders! I could move my hands, but I knew enough of ropes and
ties to realize that my chances of getting free were exactly nothing. My
plans had gone perfectly up to this moment. I had schemed to get inside
the ranch and into Old Man Hooper's room; and here I was! What more
could a man ask?