an I
allowed. Never heard of you before makin' a killin' there was nothin'
in. What's the matter with you and your gang? I'm after that bullion,
and I've got a straight tip: Lame Johnny's the bird that hooked onto
it. If you're standing in with him, you better lead me aplenty, for if
you don't I'll sure get him."

"Honest? Is that right, Jim? Ain't lyin' none?" queried McCarthy,
relieved of the belief that his gang were suspected.

"Sure, she's right, Mac."

"But I heerd you done said you was comin' to do me," persisted McCarthy.

"Think I'm fool enough to light in diggin' my own grave, by sendin'
love messages like that to a gun expert like you, Mac?" asked Captain
Jim.

Whether it was the subtle flattery or Jim's argument, Mac lowered his
gun, and while backing out of the room, remarked: "Nothin' in mixin' it
with you, Jim, if you don't want me."

But Mac was no more than out of the room when Jim slid off the bed
quick as a cat; softly as a cat, on his noiseless stockinged feet he
followed Mac down the hall; crafty as a cat, he crept down the creaking
stairs, tread for tread, a scant arm's length behind his prey--why, God
alone knows, unless for a savage joy in longer holding another thug's
life in his hands. So he hung, like a leech to the blood it loves,
across the corridor and to the middle of the trunk room that lay
between the hall and the hotel office. There Jim spoke:

"Oh! Mr. McCarthy!"

Mac whirled, drawing his gun, just in time to receive a bullet squarely
through the heart.

During the day Jim got two more scalps. The rest of the McCarthy gang
got the impression that it was up to them to pull their freight out of
Sidney, and acted on it.

In 1882 the smoke of the Lincoln County War still hung in the timber of
the Ruidoso and the Bonito, a feud in which nearly three hundred New
Mexicans lost their lives. Depredations on the Mescalero Reservation
were so frequent that the Indians were near open revolt.

Needing a red-blooded agent, the Indian Bureau sought and got one in
Major W. H. H. Llewellyn, since Captain of Rough Riders, Troup H, then
a United States marshal with a distinguished record. The then Chief of
the Bureau offered the Major two troops of cavalry to preserve order
among the Mescaleros and keep marauders off the reservation, and was
astounded when Llewellyn declined and said he would prefer to handle
the situation with no other aid than that of one man he had in mind.