but you talk all right. If I am one of the people I will do as the
rest do, but I'll be darned if I will get down and roll over for
anybody."




CHAPTER VI.


Pa Plays Surgeon and Earns the Good Will of the Bandits--They Give
Him a Course Dinner--Speeches Follow the Banquet--Pa is Made
Honorary Member of the Band--Pa and the Bad Boy Allowed to Go Free
Without Ransom.

We had the worst and the best two weeks of our lives while
prisoners of the train robbers at the Hole-in-the-Wall, because we
had plenty to eat, and good company, with hunting for game in the
foothills by day, and cinch at night, but the sleeping on the
rocks of the cave, with buffalo robes for beds, was the greatest
of all. Pa got younger every day, but he yearned to be released
and would look for hours down the dinosaurus valley, hoping to see
soldiers or circus men who might hear of our capture, charging
down the opposite hills and up the valley to our rescue, but
nobody ever came, and Pa felt like Robinson Crusoe on the island.

Some times for a couple of days the robbers would go away to rob a
train or a stage coach, and leave us with a few guards, who acted
as though they wanted us to try to escape, so they could shoot us
in the back, but we stayed, and fried bacon and elk meat and