thar's been any fools followin'
us, I guess they'll take care to keep on t'other side o' the river.
Tharfor, let's dismount and have a bit o' breakfast under the shadder o'
these trees. After we've done that, we can talk about what shed be our
next move. For my part, I feel sleepy as a 'possum. That ar licker o'
Naketosh allers knocks me up for a day or two. This time, our young
friend Quantrell here, has given us a double dose, the which I for one
won't get over in a week."

It is scarcely necessary to say the speaker is Jim Borlasse, and those
spoken to his drinking companions in the Choctaw Chief.

To a man, they all make affirmative response. Like himself, they too
are fatigued--dead done up by being all night in the saddle,--to say
nought about the debilitating effects of their debauch, and riding
rapidly with beard upon the shoulder, under the apprehension that a
sheriff and posse may be coming on behind. For, during the period of
their sojourn in Natchitoches, nearly every one of them has committed
some crime that renders him amenable to the laws.

It may be wondered how such roughs could carry on and escape
observation, much more, punishment. But at the time Natchitoches was a
true frontier town, and almost every day witnessed the arrival and
departure of characters "queer" as to dress and discipline--the trappers
and prairie traders. Like the sailor in port, when paid off and with
full pockets--making every effort to deplete them--so is the trapper
during his stay at a fort, or settlement. He does things that seem odd,
are odd, to the extreme of eccentricity. Among such the late guests of
the Choctaw Chief would not, and did not, attract particular attention.
Not much was said or thought of them, till after they were gone; and
then but by those who had been victimised, resignedly abandoning claims
and losses with the laconic remark, "The scoundrels have G.T.T."

It was supposed the assassin of Charles Clancy had gone with them; but
this, affecting the authorities more than the general public, was left
to the former to deal with; and in a land of many like affairs, soon
ceased to be spoken of.

Borlasse's visit to Natchitoches had not been for mere pleasure. It was
business that took him thither--to concoct a scheme of villainy such as
might be supposed unknown among Anglo-Saxon people, and practised only
by those of Latinic descent, on the southern side of the Rio Grande.

But robbery is not c