handsome boy before such outfits as happened along.

They were queer people, most of 'em from Missoury and
such-like southern seaports, and they were tur'ble sick of
travel by the time they come in sight of Emigrant Pass. Up to
Santa Fe they mostly hiked along any old way, but once there they
herded up together in bunches of twenty wagons or so, 'count of
our old friends, Geronimo and Loco. A good many of 'em had
horned cattle to their wagons, and they crawled along about two
miles an hour, hotter'n hell with the blower on, nothin' to
look at but a mountain a week way, chuck full of alkali, plenty
of sage-brush and rattlesnakes--but mighty little water.

Why, you boys know that country down there. Between the
Chiricahua Mountains and Emigrant Pass it's maybe a three or four
days' journey for these yere bull-slingers.

Mostly they filled up their bellies and their kegs, hoping to
last through, but they sure found it drier than cork legs, and
generally long before they hit the Springs their tongues was
hangin' out a foot. You see, for all their plumb nerve in comin'
so far, the most of them didn't know sic'em. They were plumb
innocent in regard to savin' their water, and Injins, and such;
and the long-haired buckskin fakes they picked up at Santa Fe for
guides wasn't much better.

That was where Texas Pete made his killing.

Texas Pete was a tough citizen from the Lone Star. He was about
as broad as he was long, and wore all sorts of big whiskers and