northeast on the Silver City trail. He's been plumb outen sight for
more'n half an hour.

"'Which I likes that!' says Texas Thompson. 'For broad, open-air,
noon-day hoss-stealin', I offers even money this dumb gent's
enterprise is entitled to the red ticket.'

"Which we ain't standin' thar talkin' long. If thar's one reform to
which the entire West devotes itse'f, it's breakin' people of this
habit of hoss-stealin'. It ain't no time when four of us is off on
the dumb party's trail, an' half of that is consoomed in takin' a
drink.

"Whyever be gents in the West so sot ag'in hoss-thieves? Son, you
abides in a region at once pop'lous an' fertile. But if you was to
put in three months on a cactus desert, with water holes fifty miles
apart, it would begin to glimmer on you as to what it means to find
yourse'f afoot. It would come over you like a landslide that the
party who steals your hoss would have improved your condition in
life a heap if he'd played his hand out by shootin' a hole through
your heart.

"No, I ain't in no sech hurry to hang people for standin' in on some
killin'. Thar's two sides to a killin'; an' if deceased is framed up
with a gun all reg'lar at the time, it goes a long way toward
exculpatin' of the sport who outlives him. But thar ain't only one
side to hoss-stealin', an' the sooner the party's strung up or
plugged, the sooner thar's a vict'ry for the right.

"As I remarks, it ain't two minutes when thar's four of us gone