The sixth is a tough from the East who dresses up like a bad
man and plays some low-down trick that gives the boys a bad name. Wire
fences and "nesters" made five of them; a bad heart made the sixth.

Jim S---- and I were working on the 101 Ranch in Colorado. The nesters
had the cowman on the go. They had taken up the land and elected
officers who were hard to get along with. Jim and I rode into La Junta
one day, going south from a round-up. We were having a little fun
without malice toward anybody when a farmer administration cut in
and tried to harvest us. Jim shot a deputy marshal, and I kind of
corroborated his side of the argument. We skirmished up and down the
main street, the boomers having bad luck all the time. After a while
we leaned forward and shoved for the ranch down on the Ceriso. We were
riding a couple of horses that couldn't fly, but they could catch
birds.

A few days after that, a gang of the La Junta boomers came to the
ranch and wanted us to go back with them. Naturally, we declined. We
had the house on them, and before we were done refusing, that old
'dobe was plumb full of lead. When dark came we fagged 'em a batch of
bullets and shoved out the back door for the rocks. They sure smoked
us as we went. We had to drift, which we did, and rounded up down in
Oklahoma.

Well, there wasn't anything we could get there, and, being mighty
hard up, we decided to transact a little business with the railroads.
Jim and I joined forces with Tom and Ike Moore--two brothers who had
plenty of sand they were willing to convert into dust. I can call
their names, for both of them are dead. Tom was shot while robbing a
bank in Arkansas; Ike was killed during the more dangerous pastime of
attending a dance in the Creek Nation.

We selected a place on the Santa Fe where there was a bridge across a
deep creek surrounded by heavy timber. All passenger trains took water
at the tank close to one end of the bridge. It was a quiet place, the
nearest house being five miles away. The day before it happened, we
rested our horses and "made medicine" as to how we should get about
it. Our plans were not at all elaborate, as none of us had ever
engaged in a hold-up before.

The Santa Fe flyer was due at the tank at 11.15 P. M. At eleven, Tom
and I lay down on one side of the track, and Jim and Ike took the
other. As the train rolled up, the headlight flashing far down the
track and the steam hissing from the engine, I turned w