ing
to coil his rope when those varmints made a dash at him, shooting and
yelling.

"That called for a counter play on our part, except our aim was low,
for if we didn't get a man, we were sure to leave one afoot. Just for
a minute the air was full of smoke. Two horses on our side went down
before you could say 'Jack Robinson,' but the men were unhurt, and
soon flattened themselves on the ground Indian fashion, and burnt the
grass in a half-circle in front of them. When everybody had emptied
his gun, each outfit broke back to its wagon to reload. Two of my men
came back afoot, each claiming that he had got his man all right,
all right. We were no men shy, which was lucky. Filling our guns with
cartridges out of our belts, we rode out to reconnoitre and try and
get the boys' saddles.

"The first swell of the ground showed us the field. There were the
dead steer, and five or six horses scattered around likewise, but the
grass was too high to show the men that we felt were there. As the
opposition was keeping close to their wagon, we rode up to the scene
of carnage. While some of the boys were getting the saddles off the
dead horses, we found three men taking their last nap in the grass. I
recognized them as the boss-man, the fellow with the ha'r-trigger gun,
and a fool kid that had two guns on him when we were crossing their
cattle the day before. One gun wasn't plenty to do the fighting he was
hankering for; he had about as much use for two guns as a toad has for
a stinger.

"The boys got the saddles off the dead horses, and went flying back to
our men afoot, and then rejoined us. The fight seemed over, or there
was some hitch in the programme, for we could see them hovering
near their wagon, tearing up white biled shirts out of a trunk and
bandaging up arms and legs, that they hadn't figured on any. Our herd
had been overlooked during the scrimmage, and had scattered so that
I had to send one man and the horse wrangler to round them in. We had
ten men left, and it was beginning to look as though hostilities had
ceased by mutual consent. You can see, son, we didn't bring it on. We
turned over the dead steer, and he proved to be a stray; at least he
hadn't their road brand on. One-eyed Jim said the ranch brand belonged
in San Saba County; he knew it well, the X--2. Well, it wasn't long
until our men afoot got a remount and only two horses shy on the first
round. We could stand another on the same terms in case they at