of freight. As a matter of fact, I had n't had anything to do with the
lynching. That had been done by some cowboys who were in town the day
before, and the fellow they 'd done for was an ornery cuss of a
half-breed Mexican, who was a whole lot better off dead than alive,
anyway. He tried to play some low-down game on 'em at poker, and they
just strung him up and rode off. Some of our fellows heard about it,
and three or four of us decided it would be a good thing to let
Coolidge know what our sentiments were.

"We were in dead earnest, and we meant to get his political scalp and
drive him out of the Territory with his tail between his hind legs,
before he knew what had happened to him. I won't say," and the man
grinned and his eyes twinkled, "I was n't expecting to be appointed
Governor myself afterwards. Anyway, I did n't care to be roped into a
trial for murder just then. It would have interfered with my plans.
And if the Governor had seen us apparently lynching a man right under
his eyes, he could cinch us if he wanted to.

"I called the Mexicans up to the door, told them I didn't know how the
body got there (I didn't, either), but it must have been put there by
some of my enemies. Then I gave them money to take charge of it, say
the dead man was a friend of theirs, and do the proper thing. So the
poor cuss was in luck by the affair after all, for he got a mass said
over him. Then I sent word to my friends who 'd been with me, and we
all just quietly skipped, on the minute. At sun-up that morning there
was n't one of us in town. I had urgent business in Texas for the next
week.

"You see, we 'd all of us thought our new Governor was just a
highfalutin' tenderfoot, and it would n't be any job at all to buffalo