er he would speak out.

"There is no danger with me, Captain; I am an Englishman, a perfect
stranger here, and have never seen or heard of a man amongst them."

"I see _that_," said he; "and your friends must be rank green 'uns to
let you go and join this trail,--that's a fact."

"But what are they?"

"Well, they call 'emselves horse-dealers; but above Austin there, and
along by Bexar, they call 'em horsestealers!" and he laughed heartily at
the excessive drollery of the remark.

"And where do they trade with their cattle?"

"They sells 'em here, or up in the States away north sometimes; but they
picks up the critters along the Chehuhua Line, or down by Aguaverde,
or San Pueblo. I 've known 'em to go to Mexico too. When they don't get
scalped, they 've rather good fun of it; but they squable a bit now and
then among 'emselves; and so there's a Texan proverb that 'buffalo-meat
in spring is as rare as a mustang merchant with two eyes!'"

"What does that mean?"

"They gouge a bit down there, they do,--that's a fact. I 've known two
or three join the Redmen, and Say Injians was better living with, than
them 'ere."

"I own your picture is not flattering."

"Yes, but it be, though! You don't know them chaps; but I know 'em,--ay,
for nigh forty year. I 'm a-livin' on this 'ere passage, and I've seen
'em all. I knew Bowlin Sam, I did!" From the manner this was said, I saw
that Bowlin Sam was a celebrity, to be ignorant of whom was to confess
one's self an utter savage.

"To be sure, I was only a child at the time; but I saw him come aboard
with the negro fellow that he followed up the Red River trail. They
were two of the biggest fellows you could see. Sam stood six feet
six-an'-a-quarter; the Black was six feet four,--but he had a stoop in
his shoulders. Sam tracked him for two years; and many's the dodge they
had between 'em. But Sam took him at last, and he brought him all the
way from Guajaqualle here, bound with his hands behind him, and a log of
iron-wood in his mouth; for he could tear like a juguar.

"They were both on 'em ugly men,--Sam very ugly! Sam could untwist the
strongest links of an iron boat-chain, and t' other fellow could bite a
man-rope clean in two with his teeth. 'The Black' eat nothing from the
time they took him; and when they put him into the shore-boat, in the
river, he was so weak they had to lift him like a child. Well, out they
rowed into the middle of the stream, where the water is r