were to
return by noon, when the remainder of us were to have our turn in
seeing the sights of Frenchman's Ford. The horse wrangler remained
behind with us, to accompany the other half of the outfit in the
afternoon. The herd was no trouble to hold, and after watering about
the middle of the forenoon, three of us went into camp and got dinner.
As this was the first time since starting that our cook was absent, we
rather enjoyed the opportunity to practice our culinary skill. Pride
in our ability to cook was a weakness in our craft. The work was
divided up between Joe Stallings, John Officer, and myself, Honeyman
being excused on agreeing to rustle the wood and water. Stallings
prided himself on being an artist in making coffee, and while hunting
for the coffee mill, found a bag of dried peaches.

"Say, fellows," said Joe, "I'll bet McCann has hauled this fruit a
thousand miles and never knew he had it amongst all this plunder. I'm
going to stew a saucepan full of it, just to show his royal nibs that
he's been thoughtless of his boarders."

Officer volunteered to cut and fry the meat, for we were eating stray
beef now with great regularity; and the making of the biscuits fell to
me. Honeyman soon had a fire so big that you could not have got near
it without a wet blanket on; and when my biscuits were ready for the
Dutch oven, Officer threw a bucket of water on the fire, remarking:
"Honeyman, if you was _cusi segundo_ under me, and built up such a big
fire for the chef, there would be trouble in camp. You may be a good
enough horse wrangler for a through Texas outfit, but when it comes to
playing second fiddle to a cook of my accomplishments--well, you
simply don't know salt from wild honey. A man might as well try to
cook on a burning haystack as on a fire of your building."

When the fire had burned down sufficiently, the cooks got their
respective utensils upon the fire; I had an ample supply of live coals
for the Dutch oven, and dinner was shortly afterwards announced as
ready. After dinner, Officer and I relieved the men on herd, but over
an hour passed before we caught sight of the first and second guards
returning from the Ford. They were men who could stay in town all day
and enjoy themselves; but, as Flood had reminded them, there were
others who were entitled to a holiday. When Bob Blades and Fox
Quarternight came to our relief on herd, they attempted to detain us
with a description of Frenchman's Ford, but