ch. One evening a low-down
terra-cotta-colored Piute swiped two of Mr. Watkins' paint ponies and by
stealth, under cover of the cloaking twilight, went away with them into
the far mysterious spaces of the purpling sage.

To these ponies the owner was deeply attached, not alone on account of the
intrinsic value, but for sentimental reasons likewise. So immediately on
discovering the loss the next morning, Mr. Watkins took steps. He saddled
a third pony which the thief had somehow overlooked in the haste of
departure, and he girded on him both cutlery and shootlery, and he mounted
and soon was off and away across the desert upon the trail of the vanished
malefactor. Now when Mr. Watkins fared forth thus accoutered it was a sign
he was not out for his health or anybody else's.

Friends and well-wishers volunteered to accompany him upon the chase, for
they foresaw brisk doings. But he declined their company. Folklore,
descending from his generation to ours, has it that he said this was his
own business and he preferred handling it alone in his own way. He did
add, however, that on overtaking the fugitive it was his intention, as an
earnest or token of his displeasure, to eat that Injun's liver raw. Some
versions say he mentioned liver rare, but the commonly accepted legend has
it that the word used was _raw_. With this he put the spur to his steed's
flank and was soon but a mere moving speck in the distance.

Now there was never offered any direct proof that our hero, in pursuance
of his plan for teaching the Indian a lesson, actually did do with regard
to the latter's liver what he had promised the bystanders he would do;
moreover, touching on this detail he ever thereafter maintained a
steadfast and unbreakable silence. In lieu of corroborative testimony by
unbiased witnesses as to the act itself, we have only these two things to
judge by: First, that when Mr. Watkins returned in the dusk of the same
day he was wearing upon his face a well-fed, not to say satiated,
expression, yet had started forth that morning with no store of
provisions; and second, that on being found in a deceased state some days
later, the Piute, who when last previously seen had with him two of Mr.
Watkin's pintos and one liver of his own, was now shy all three. By these
facts a strong presumptive case having been made out, Mr. Watkins was
thenceforth known not as Ezekiel or Emanuel, or whatever his original
first name had been, but as Liver-Eating