e valuable. We were all detained as witnesses. He
was tried for robbing the mails, and was the coolest man in the court
room. He was a tall, awkward-looking fellow, light complexioned, with
a mild blue eye. His voice, when not disguised, would mark him amongst
a thousand men. It was peculiarly mild and soft, and would lure a babe
from its mother's arms.

"At the trial he never tried to hide his past, and you couldn't help
liking the fellow for his frank answers.

"'Were you ever charged with any crime before?' asked the prosecution.
'If so, when and where?'

"'Yes,' said the prisoner, 'in Texas, for robbing the mails in '77.'

"'What was the result?' continued the prosecution.

"'They sent me over the road for ninety-nine years.'

"'Then how does it come that you are at liberty?' quizzed the
attorney.

"'Well, you see the President of the United States at that time was
a warm personal friend of mine, though we had drifted apart somewhat.
When he learned that the Federal authorities had interfered with my
liberties, he pardoned me out instantly.'

"'What did you do then?' asked the attorney.

"'Well, I went back to Texas, and was attending to my own business,
when I got into a little trouble and had to kill a man. Lawyers down
there won't do anything for you without you have money, and as I
didn't have any for them, I came up to this country to try and make an
honest dollar.'

"He went over the road a second time, and wasn't in the Federal prison
a year before he was released through influence. Prison walls were
never made to hold as cool a rascal as he was. Have you a match?"

* * * * *

It was an ideal night. Millions of stars flecked the sky overhead.
No one seemed willing to sleep. We had heard the evening gun and the
trumpets sounding tattoo over at the fort, but their warnings of the
closing day were not for us. The guards changed, the cattle sleeping
like babes in a trundle-bed. Finally one by one the boys sought their
blankets, while sleep and night wrapped these children of the plains
in her arms.

II

SEIGERMAN'S PER CENT

Towards the wind-up of the Cherokee Strip Cattle Association it became
hard to ride a chuck-line in winter. Some of the cattle companies
on the range, whose headquarters were far removed from the scene of
active operations, saw fit to give orders that the common custom of
feeding all comers and letting them wear their own welcome out