and guide when I first
met him, and thereafter during our many wanderings over the country, I
with my cattle, he with Uncle Sam's soldiers or on a lone scout, we
often bumped up against each other, and these meetings are among my
treasured memories. He was a man who knew the country better than he
knew his own mother, absolutely fearless, kind and generous to a fault.
He was the sort of a man that once you meet, him you could never forget
him, and us boys who knew him well considered him the chief of all the
government scouts of that day. I also had the pleasure of meeting Kit
Carson in Arizona and nearly all the government scouts, hunters and
trappers of the western country, and they can all be described in one
sentence, they were men whom it was a pleasure and an honor to know.

"Billie the Kid" was another sort of a man and there has never been
another man like him and I don't think there ever will be again. Writers
claim that he was a man all bad. This I doubt as I knew him well and I
have known him to do deeds of kindness. He had many traits that go to
make a good man, but fate and circumstances were against the kid, yet I
know he always remembered a kindness done him and he never forgave an
enemy. I have rode by his side many a long mile, and it is hard to
believe he was as bad as he is pictured to be, but the facts are against
him, and when his career was ended by the bullet from Sheriff Garrett's
colt, the world was better off, likewise were some men who stood in
mortal fear of the kid, and I suppose they had good reason to be afraid
as the kid always kept his word.

During my employment with the Duval outfit and Pete Gallingan I often
made trips on the trail with herds of cattle and horses belonging to
other ranch owners, and on these trips many incidents occurred, amusing
and sad. The following incident happened in the fall of 1878, when I
went up the trail with the half circle box brand outfit, belonging to
Arthur Gorman and company.

We had a small herd of horses to take to Dodge City, where we arrived
after an uneventful trip, and after disposing of the horses we started
out to do the town as usual. But in this we met an unexpected snag. Our
bookkeeper, Jack Zimick, got into a poker game and lost all the money he
had to pay the cowboys off with, which amounted to about two thousand
dollars, and also about the same amount of the boss' money. The boys had
about one and a half years' wages coming to them, a