The Prairie Schooner

Guarding an Overland Freight Outfit.

Driving seven yoke of oxen hauling two wagons attached by a short rig similar to that used in coupling cars, along a desert road, is enough to keep an able-bodied ox-train brakeman busy. But when, in addition to keeping his wild "leaders" in the road and his "wheelers" filling their yokes, he has to keep an eye on a distant bad land bluff or a roll in the surface, he has his hands more than full.

This was the situation when the bull outfit, from Cheyenne to Spotted Tail, was slowly moving along north of the Platte river in August, 1875—a time when Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies were nearly deserted, and all the young bucks were chasing antelope and incidentally collecting scalps of white men when they could find a white man alone and unprepared to defend himself; or when they could outnumber a bull outfit one hundred or two hundred to one and get its members in a "pocket," which was not often.

At this particular time a young man who, a couple of years previous, had never known anything less comfortable than a feather bed, or a job harder than writing railroad way-bills, was one of two in the cross-country freighter crew who had been assigned by Wagon-boss Watson to mount a "pinto" pony and ride all day at least 1,000 yards away from the trail and keep to the high places where he could see what was going on, if anything, in the vicinity. He had been told to dismount and examine any signs of life on the ground where it was bare, or in the grass, and when found to fire one shot from his revolver to let the bullwhackers know that they had "company" not far off; and if he saw one Indian or a hundred to shoot not once but three times in rapid succession and then gallop to the wagon train with details.

The movement across the desert-like country this day began at four a. m., and continued until ten a. m. The featherbed youngster was well equipped with an army Springfield of large calibre, forty rounds in his belt, two Remington revolvers and a butcher knife with a five-inch blade for the possibility of close quarters. He had a bottle of spring water and a saddlebag full of sandwiches of bread and fried sowbelly and plenty of chewing and smoking tobacco.

Maybe you think this youngster thought of his soft bed at home or a pot shot from ambush that would leave his skeleton bleaching in a sandy desert sun after it had been stripped of its flesh by wolves; or that he wished someone else had been chosen to guard one side of the overland train of flour, bacon, corn and sugar and its custodians, but that is not so. It was one of the proudest days of his life and I know he will never forget it. He was highly honored by Watson and he appreciated it, for the reason that only two years before he had come to Wyoming a green city boy and was then known in the parlance of the plains as a "tenderfoot," which was a truthful description of any man or boy when he first entered upon the life of the bullwhacker, the then popular master of transportation between civilization and its outposts. He never dreamed of death when he got his orders, because he was young and foolish. Sometimes it is called bravery, but that isn't the right word. It can't be described unless it is called blind or reckless indifference. Perhaps that isn't it; anyway the youngster, as he mounted and galloped away and waited on a neighboring knoll for the outfit to string out along the sandy trail, hoped he wouldn't be disappointed. He wanted an eventful day and he fairly prayed for it. "I hope," he ruminated to himself half aloud, "that I cross a tepee trail, at least, even if I don't get my eye on an Indian."

It wasn't long until he began to wonder, for it was still barely daylight, if it wouldn't be possible for a buck of good aim to pick him off, especially if the buck practiced the usual tactics of concealing himself behind a sand-dune or a butte. He wasn't afraid—he didn't know the word—but he wondered. For this reason he kept his pony moving, reasoning that it is easier to hit a stationary target than a swiftly whirling one. But the pony appeared to be a dead one even when a spur was roughly rubbed upon his belly, until, as the train had gotten well out of camp and the teams strung along for a mile, he found his pony to be interested in something, for he insisted on frequent stops and moved his ears back and forward and snorted lightly.

Finally it seemed next to impossible to get him to move, and Featherbed was sure the pony had been owned by Indians at some time and was of the trick variety, being trained to a brand of treachery that meant delivery of his mount into the hands of the reds.

And while these things were passing through the youngster's brain his only concern was that the train was leaving him, and that he was not guarding it. He heard a coyote's mournful note, but that was a common occurrence, although he wondered if it couldn't be possible that an Indian was doing the howling. It sounded like an imitation.

The pony snorted some more, and then Featherbed, finding his blunt pointed spurs were not getting him anywhere, unsheathed his butcher-knife and pricked his cayuse on the back. He tried to buck, but he wore a double cinch—one fore and one aft—and it kept him on all fours.

Things were getting worse and the voices of the bullwhackers yelling at their teams grew fainter and fainter as the outfit slowly but surely put distance between Featherbed and his companion, when there was a sound that resembled the dropping of a stick in the water preceded by a distinct swish as if it had been thrown through the air like a boomerang.

Then the pinto got busy. It was an arrow!

There were several more, and one of them clipped the pommel of the saddle before Featherbed thought of his orders to fire once on sight of disturbed grass or a moccasin track on bare ground; or, upon sighting an Indian, to fire three times.

Then he let go with his Springfield in the supposed direction of the enemy, and headed for the trail, which he readily found, and soon caught up with the mess-wagon which always formed the rear guard with one whacker, the night herder inside, and the extra herd horses tied behind. Featherbed met Watson galloping toward the rear.

"What is it, boy?" he shouted.

"They got a piece of my Texas pommel," he replied, "but I don't know where the arrow came from. I'll go back and see."

He wheeled his pony to go and would have been off to take up his station a thousand yards from the trail had not Watson said, laughingly:

"You're crazy—wait a minute till I send word up ahead to corral."

"You (to the mess wagon driver) untie them hosses, saddle 'em up and wait for Blucher Brown and Archer; they'll be back in a minute."

Featherbed, as the sun peeped over a rise in the land, waited impatiently. So did the pony, for the miserable Indian-bred cuss had a good nose that was keen to the smoky smell of an Indian, or to the odor of another horse, especially of his own breed, and he was all animation and ready to go.

When the party finally got away Watson, turning to Featherbed as they galloped side by side along the high spots near the back trail, said:

"If yer not afraid, pull out ahead with that pony and lead the way."

Featherbed pressed the Rowell spur to the pony's side and he responded like a real cow-pony, much to Featherbed's surprise, and before Watson could gather his breath to call the youngster back he led them by 200 yards. Finally he did manage to yell between his laughter:

"Hold on, you danged idiot—I didn't mean—"

But he didn't finish the sentence, although he continued yelling, this time expressing himself to the effect:

"My hoss has been creased in the neck—dismount, give me your hoss and lead mine back to the outfit; we'll take care of these galoots."

Featherbed protested, but it was no use, and he returned and joined the whackers who had corralled and gathered the bulls inside the wagons, forming two half circles on a high spot near the trail. There were several other horses in the outfit, so Featherbed quickly slipped the boss' fine $200 rig on the back of a buckskin of the cow-puncher variety and sped back to the scene of action.

But it was all over. The sneaking Indians had disappeared, and the only evidence of their presence was a spot of crumpled grass behind a knoll where several of them had lain in complete safety while they tried to send Featherbed to the Happy Hunting Ground.

The sun was too high for the Indians, so they disappeared, skulking at safe distance to wait for darkness and perhaps other prey.

Featherbed, after another shift of mounts and saddles and bridles, again took his post 1,000 yards from the trail, smoked his pipe, munched his sandwiches and drank the spring water.

At ten o'clock camp was struck for the mid-day stop close to a creek of sweet cold water that ran through some small hills covered with stunted pines, a few miles from a range of black mountains out of the bad lands and sand.

Featherbed was here promoted to the position of assistant wagon boss, presented with a big sorrel horse called "America" (because he was not Indian-bred) and given the lead team to drive in the outfit. This meant that, in co-operation with the "big boss," he would help select the camps, govern the speed of the "train," look after the manifests, act as check clerk in loading and unloading, and besides wear a red sash to designate his official position.

Featherbed took his honors modestly, in fact he was surprised and couldn't understand it until someone told him the "old man" was pleased when he (Featherbed) took the wounded horse back to the train, saddled up another and returned to help find where the arrows came from.

Rattlesnakes and Redskins.

Belated Grace for a Christmas Dinner.

After fighting through a ten-hour blizzard that swept across the plains from the Elk Mountain country our wagon-train reached the foothills of the Medicine Bow range, where there was shelter for the work cattle along a swift running stream. The snow was piled in great drifts everywhere except upon exposed high spots, and it seemed impossible for us to proceed farther, for we knew that along the government trail just beyond, and 1,000 feet higher, that the drifts would be so deep that a long camp where we had stopped would be necessary.

Ten men were tolled off by the wagon-boss to chop down young quaking aspen trees, the bark and small twigs of which furnished appetizing fodder for the bulls. Another gang climbed a sidehill and with axes felled a group of stunted pines for the side walls of a cabin; still others were sent into a "burnt and down" piece of timber to gather well seasoned dead pitch pine for firewood.

The storm lasted until six o'clock in the evening, then continued as an old-fashioned heavy snowfall with no wind, increasing the level of the snow to the tops of the wheels of our corraled wagons. Apparently they were doomed to stay where they were until spring.

Next morning there was a let-up. Then the blizzard began again in all its fury—only such a blizzard as one can see in but one other place on earth, judging from Dana's description of his experience in going around the Horn. The cattle, with almost human intelligence, 200 head of them, crowded toward the big bonfires of pitch, and with long faces looked mournfully upon the scene. They seemed to know, as we did, that the prospects were not bright for our cavalcade. Certainly there was no grass in sight now, not even on the round-topped knolls bordering our little valley, for the night fall of snow was heavy and damp, and finally, when the thermometer registered a few degrees below zero, the grass was sealed against the tough noses and even the hoofs of the hungry bulls. An attempt was made by a scouting party to find a clear feeding place on the back trail, but a day's investigation resulted in failure. Not a blade of grass could be found—all sealed with a heavy crust that would, in most places, carry a horse and rider.

The storm continued, after an eight-hour let-up, the temperature rising. Two feet more fell on top of the crust, then came another freeze and a new crust. After twenty-four hours another blizzard from the north, consisting of sleet and snow and some rain, was like a sandstorm in summer on the plains below. It was fierce, nearly freezing and blinding both men and cattle. The poor bulls were more forlorn than ever. They gnawed the very wood of the aspens, and there wasn't enough of that.

On the last crust of all this snow and sleet it was finally found possible to take the oxen farther along into the mountains, where four men drove them. Others went ahead with axes and for two weeks cut aspens and sought out hidden protected places in the valleys where there were a few blades of grass and some succulent underbrush.

One day, when the sun was shining brightly on the white mantle and the distant peaks of the majestic mountains of blue stood out like a painting, Nate Williams, wagon-boss, spoke:

"Do you know," he said to the fellows who were carving the carcass of a faithful old bullock, "that tomorrow is Christmas?" None had thought of it.

"And," he continued, "do you know we are liable to stay where we are until the Fourth of July, if we don't get a move on?"

There were no suggestions.

"Furthermore," added Williams, "we haven't much else to eat but beef—there are just five 100-pound sacks of flour in the mess wagon—no bacon nor canned goods. Its a case of shoveling a road to Crane's Neck."

Crane's Neck was a mountain twist in the road, a mile from camp. If the road could be cleared to that point there would be fair hauling for five miles in the range to another stretch that had been filled in places with from ten to twenty feet of snow, while one spot was covered by a slide from a mountain to a depth of forty feet and for a considerable distance along the trail.

For three hours plans were discussed, and it was finally determined to go to work with shovels and picks, but not until after Christmas. Our caravan included a blacksmith's forge, also a regular wrecking outfit, and in a short time big wooden shovels were made from blocks of pine with handles stoutly attached with iron bands.

The cook was a youth of twenty and had all the enthusiasm of the adventurer. He had spent a year on a whaler and knew what it meant to drift in the ice north of Point Barrow. This present situation, he said, was a picnic; so was the one in the Arctic. It couldn't be so bad that he wished to be snuggled away in a feather bed somewhere east of the Missouri River. That would be too ordinary.

"If I could sit down to a table at the best hotel in the land," he said, "I'd prefer to eat the dinner that I'm going to cook for you fellows tomorrow."

Williams sneered. "Yes," he said, "we put old Tex (a long-horn bull) out of his starving misery and the boys have found his liver to be O. K. Maybe you can give us a liver pie."

"I'll do better than that," said the boy; "I'll not only give you a beef stew, but a pudding that you can't buy outside of London or Liverpool—a plum duff—and a cake. Old Tex will also be on the menu in several places, for his tenderloin looks good, and there are a few steaks which, when properly treated with a maul on the top of a stump, will be as good as you will get in a 'Frisco water front lodging, and better than any of you fellows have had since we hit the drifts."

I have eaten meals that mother used to cook, I've been famished during a sea voyage, and devoured a Norwegian sailor's pea soup; I've participated in several real banquets in New York; I've dined at Delmonico's and at Sherry's, at Young's in Boston, and I've feasted in a circus cook tent; but my Christmas dinner in the foothills of Wyoming in 1874, under the circumstances I have but faintly described, still is a fond memory and holds the record as the best meal I ever ate. It was as follows:

MENU

Marrowbone Soup—"Tex"          Water Cress
Beef Stew—"Tex"
Hamburg Steak—"Tex"
Planked Porterhouse Steak—"Tex"
Tenderloin Steak-"Tex"          Roast Beef—"Tex"
Corn Bread          Wheat Bread
English Plum Pudding—Hard and Soft Sauce
Raisins          Cake          Coffee          Tea
(No butter or milk)          (Lots of salt and pepper)

The corn bread was made from meal milled by the cook from shelled corn in the cargo. The "plums" were raisins, of which the cook had a few pounds. He used wheat flour, baking powder and grease saved from the final ration of the bacon which gave out a week before Christmas. The hard sauce was made with sugar and grease and a flavoring extract. The soft or liquid sauce contained a "remedy" requisitioned from a homeopathic quantity found in the wagon-boss' medicine chest—a few spoonfuls of brandy. The watercress was found two miles away at a spring. The boys called it "pepper grass." There it was fresh and green, protected by spring water which never freezes, and in some places it was peeping out from the edge of the snow at the brookside.

And now about whisky. There were sixty men in this camp, and in one of the big wagons were three barrels of whisky, but it belonged to the post trader at Fort Fetterman, and it was a tradition not even broken on this exceptional passage from Medicine Bow on the U. P. to Fort Fetterman on the North Platte that a consignment of hard liquor was as safe in a bull train as it would be anywhere on earth, and that it would reach its destination untouched. Few men drank intoxicants on these trips. It was a crime to be found with whisky, punishable by banishment from camp, and that might have meant death. But at both ends of the journey—that's another story.

The plainsman and mountaineer, the bullwhacker and the stage-driver, when chilled, drank water. Whisky caused him to perspire, and that was bad. He did not often use it when on duty.

One of the peculiar things about this Christmas dinner is the fact that there were no mountain grouse, no sage hen, no antelope, deer, nor elk for the menu. The truth is the storm drove everything of the kind in another direction—the direction in which we were slowly moving—and some time later, when we emerged upon the other side of the range with our ox-power so greatly reduced that we made less than a mile of progress a day, the herds of elk stampeded a dozen times past our camps, and the "fool grouse" sat a dozen in a group upon the pine boughs in the mountains and refused to move, allowing us to kill them, if so disposed, one at a time; but we did it only once, just to prove that it could be done. (Colonel Roosevelt, please note!)

It took us a couple of weeks to shovel our way out, and while the sun shone in the middle of the day hardly a flake of the snow melted. The air was at times biting cold, but invigorating, and every man, including the boss and the cook and even the night herder, fell to the work with a will that finally meant victory. In places we operated in the drifts as you see the excavators in a city cellar or subway operate, digging down to the surface and then benching as the open-ground miners or cellar excavators do, the men below tossing the blocks of snow up to the bench above and they in turn passing it to the top of the drift.

Once or twice, in narrow passages, it was necessary to build several benches. In one place we began to tunnel, but the plan was given up, for our wagons, the regulation prairie schooners, would require a passage big enough for a railroad furniture car to pass through.

After the high plateau was reached—the land that represented the watershed of the Platte Valley—it was clear sailing, and while food—wild game—was plentiful, and we ate lots of it, the memory of our Christmas dinner remained to remind us after all that in the midst of greatest hardships and suffering we often find something to be thankful for, something to bring us to our senses when we grumble or complain of our ill-luck or misfortunes.

Had I been as appreciative when I partook of this mountain dinner as I am today for the blessings of Divine Providence, I would have been able to say, in relating this story, that we properly gave thanks to Him who is responsible for all our blessings and who chasteneth us for our wickedness; but I was not properly appreciative, neither were my rough but honest companions. Therefore, I take this opportunity to say grace more than forty years late:

Thank God for that snowbound Christmas dinner.

The Fate of One-Eyed Ed.

From the cross-tree of a telegraph pole hung the body of a man when the 9:30 Union Pacific Overland Express stopped for a "slow" order across a bridge that a band of Comanche Indians had tried to burn.

A Massachusetts woman enroute to 'Frisco stuck her head out of a car window and exclaimed, "How awfully terrible!"

Yes, it was.

Ed Preston was a one-eyed man. I don't know how he lost the other one, but I do know that he was a dead shot with the one eye that he slanted along the barrel of his pistol or buffalo rifle, the latter a sawed-off Springfield and the first mentioned an old-time army Remington.

Preston's marksmanship cost him his life. They hung Preston, the boys did, because he killed a man just for the meanness of it, or, as one of them said, because he was spoiling for trouble.

One day as we were camped on the north bank of the North Platte near the eastern line of Wyoming, Preston, full of liquor, lurched up to a bunch of bullwhackers and asked if anyone present thought he was a "dead shot." Of course, all hands admitted that his reputation was unquestioned.

"But you never saw me shoot," he said, "so what the —— do you know about it?" Then he pulled his gun and backed off, saying, as he pointed to a heap of discarded tomato cans:

"Hey, you Charley, heave one o' them cans in the air—hurry up."

Observing his apparent quarrelsome attitude, Charley Snow, a youthful member of the outfit, obeyed without protest. Snow had been assigned by Martin, the wagon-boss, to help the cook and the cook had made him responsible for the proper boiling of a pot of beans. Snow left the beans and threw a can as far away from himself as he could, and before it hit the ground it was perforated by a bullet.

"Now throw one straight up in the air," commanded Preston, and Snow obeyed. Preston put two shots into that "on the wing." Snow attempted to resume his duties at the mess fire, but Preston's shooting had drawn a dozen or more of the men of the outfit to the scene, and he was in the humor to show off; therefore as Snow was the youngest and possibly the most inoffensive man in the party, Preston decided to eliminate the bean question by ordering Snow, with a flourish of his gun, to remove the beans from the fire. This done, he continued:

"Now you throw the cans and be lively about it."

Snow did as ordered. One, two, three, ten cans went into the air. Preston missed none. Finally the boy threw, at Preston's command, two at a time and both were plugged before they came down. Then as Snow picked up another one Preston shot it out of his hand, and he tried to quit and return to the bean kettle, whereupon Preston bored a hole through Snow's sombrero without cutting off a hair or bruising his scalp, although it was plain to see that while Snow was no fresh tenderfoot from the effete East, but a seasoned young bullwhacker and plainsman, he was more than uneasy. The boy said afterward that while he had a whole lot of confidence in Preston's marksmanship he knew he had drunk at least a pint of whisky—the worst of the squirrel variety at that—for had he not taken the last swig out of a flask, thrown it almost at Snow and sent its splinters in every direction by a shot from his Remington? Sober, said Snow, Preston would not have been so bad, but drunk—he objected to further participation in the William Tell business and he entered his protest. When he discovered that the chambers of Preston's revolver were temporarily empty, Snow quietly took a rifle from its leather fastenings on the side of a prairie schooner. His move looked ominous to his tormentor.

Preston was a coward, as were all of that class of killers in those days. He was an engineer of a bull team of seven yokes and a good man at his business, but a bully, a braggart and a coward, whose victims usually were known to be peaceful and who were unarmed or unprepared to defend themselves. He was not the heroic figure of the almost forgotten wild west—the brave and big-hearted fellow who fought sometimes for his rights or what he considered his rights. Preston was just a plain murderer, who had taken a place among rough but honest frontiersmen, chased from an orderly community somewhere in God's country—then east of the Missouri, now anywhere from the Atlantic to the Pacific—because of some dark crime he had committed, no doubt.

All day long we had been fording the North Platte at this point—Sidney crossing—a distance of at least a half a mile, including a small island of sand and a few bushes. It was the last trainload of provisions for the season we were taking north to the government's beneficiaries—the Ogalala Sioux and the Cheyennes. We had seventy teams, each of seven yokes, and two wagons, and as the Platte is a swift-running stream at this point and there is quicksand between the south shore and the island, it was necessary to "jack up" on blocks some of our loads on the wagons and double and treble teams, sometimes using as many as twenty-five yokes of oxen on one wagon and a half dozen men, belly deep in the mush ice, punching the bulls. The water was in places up to the tops of the wheels. It was a sun-up to sun-down job from corral to corral.

Someone had whisky, but it was not apparent until late in the afternoon, when the target shooting incidents began. The boys were a sober lot—the good, honest kind, and not a desperado among them, barring One-Eyed Ed. Others there were, sure enough, who might be considered hardly fit for even the most humble society, for they looked like pirates—all of them—hair long, clothes weather-beaten and rough, faces unshaven and grizzled, and language or topics of conversation not what would be called cultured by any means. Yet there was in this outfit a predominance of good, honest hearts, most of them measuring life from a standard never understood if ever known in "God's Country." These sailors of prairie schooners, these pioneer transportation men of the virile, virgin West, knew little law or order or justice, as we know them; they frequently violated what is known as the law, but they didn't know it. They had but one degree of murder. It wasn't murder for them to fight and kill with pistols. It was the custom. Murder was something else. It was to kill a man who was not "heeled" or when his back was turned, or to mount another man's horse and ride away. This was murder in the first degree—the same as if the owner of the horse had been shot to death while asleep. In those days some things were as necessary, as indispensable as life—a horse, a saddle, a pair of blankets, a gun and ammunition and a butcher knife—perhaps a small bag of salt. The last, however, would be termed a luxury, although nearly every man in those days had a little salt stored away in a weather-proof pocket or saddle bag for the sage hen, antelope, deer, or buffalo beef he might have for dinner or breakfast.

But let me tell you how Preston spent the rest of his day. It was early in the afternoon when he perforated Snow's sombrero, but it was sun-down when he shot and killed Tom Sash, the boss herder, a splendid Texan, who had charge of an Indian contract beef herd which had come up the trail from the Lone Star state to the Platte Valley guided by a half dozen range men in charge of Sash, and were being grazed along the Platte bottoms previous to being doled out as per agreement with Uncle Sam to the clouted redskins at the White River Agency at Red Cloud.

All during the previous summer, as the wagon trains passed to and from Sidney and the northern forts and agencies, Sash had told the wagon bosses not to go hungry for lack of veal. "We are anxious to fatten these cattle," he would say, "and you are welcome to a calf or two any time you want it." Sash was all right and the bullwhackers couldn't sing his praises loud enough.

It was at the close of Snow's engagement with Preston that the wagon boss told Preston to try his hand on some Indian veal. So Preston disappeared down the river, returning at suppertime with the admission that he had not only veal but "yearling steak." And he had some of it with him.

The beans had been boiled and eaten, the tin dishes and cups, pots and kettles and iron ovens dumped into the mess wagon, and two crews of men were at work jacking up wagons and greasing axle skeins, when the space at the north mouth of the corral was suddenly filled by as fine a horseman as ever galloped over the plains. It was Sash, dressed in the costume of the real cowboy of the long-horn cattle day—sombrero, chaps, Rowell spurs, a Mexican lariat properly adjusted over the horn of his elaborate double-cinched cutting-out saddle—everything was perfection. He was astride a fine big black American horse—not a regulation cow pony—a shiny, deep bay charger with a white left ankle half way to the knee from the fetlock, and a spot of white the size of a hand on the face.

He came on a gallop and stopped so short at the corral mouth that, had he not known his business, he would have been thrown over the chains. But that was the style of riding. Plunge ahead to the object or point desired—then stop short. He waved his hat to Martin, our wagon boss, to come to the corral chains.

"Someone from your outfit," shouted Sash, "has been out in one of our herds and shot a half dozen yearlings and two three-year-old steers. Aren't you satisfied with veal? Say, old man, who did this mean trick?"

The acts of a coward are preceded by a queer train of thought, the kingpin of which is fear. Preston knew his disreputable work of butchering among the herd of cattle had been discovered. He knew that Sash, a Texan, was a man of action, and that Sash was fortified with the right on his side, and if justice were meted out it would be some kind of punishment. The revolver in his holster was close to his hand and fear—cowardly fear—overpowered his weak mind.

Martin had no time to reply, and the first indication that the coward was to act upon the impulse that would move him was the cry from a bullwhacker:

"Don't shoot—don't."

Sash, who was looking straight over his horse's head, turned at hearing this just in time to receive a bullet in the hollow spot under his left ear. It passed clean through his head. Both arms flew into the air, his horse sprang forward, and Sash laid upon the ground flat on his back, with arms spread out from his body—dead. His face was ashen white, eyes and mouth closed, both fists clinched.

It was young Snow who tied the black charger to a wagon wheel, replacing the bridle with a halter. The horse whinnied, pawed the dirt, and for a time spun around as far as the halter strap would allow, and looked at his prostrate master with what seemed to be almost human intelligence; in fact, his body was soon in a white lather, necessitating a rub-down and then a blanket. He trembled like a leaf and snorted and pawed the earth for an hour.

Sash's camp was on the south bank of the Platte. There Preston was delivered by Wagon Boss Martin and a delegation of the bull outfit fellows after he had tried to escape.

That night, together with a negro boy, Snow stood guard over Sash's body to protect it from the coyotes, for they were numerous, close at hand and howled mournfully until break of day.

None touched the body, as it had been determined to follow what was believed to be the law, for this time the outfit was only fifty miles from where at least a pretense of regularity was observed.

A rider was dispatched to Sidney, then a scattered lot of board shanties on the south side of the Union Pacific Railroad track.

The second night there came to the bullwhacker camp two men in a light road wagon. They took the body away.

At the same time a dozen bullwhackers and nearly all the men from the cow camp rode away to the south. Preston, silent as the Sphynx, sat astride a horse, his hands tied behind him. They told him he was going to Sidnev to have a trial. He smiled, but said nothing. It was just an effort to appear brave. His life had been one of crime. He was a pest of the plains, of the trails, of the camps—and he was on the way to the end of a rope. He knew it, and did not plead for mercy or ask for quarter; he did not in the long ride across the sand hills utter a word of regret for what he had done. He was heartless, cruel, brutal, even in the valley of the shadow. And he was silent even as death itself. He showed no fear as we would describe fear.

Entering Sidney the posse and the prisoner took the center one of three coulees that ran down into the town, all three meeting at the level. It was here that One-Eyed Ed met the court that was to try him, together with the populace. The court consisted of fifty horsemen, half of whom rode down the east coulee, the other half down the other, meeting the prisoner and his escort as abruptly as one meets a person sometimes in whirling around the corner of a city block.

One long yi, yi, yi, yi, ye! was the "hear ye" of the plainsman court crier—the signal understood by all the horsemen, and especially those comprising the posse just emerging from the center coulee. As if by magic the escort faded away and the prisoner, bareheaded, long hair waving in the wind, his hands securely tied, sat upright—alone.

Then from the east and west coulees dashed horsemen led by Jim Redding swinging his lariat over and over and over his head until he was in the right spot to spin it out. Preston's horse stood like a piece of statuary, and to give the man on his back his proper meed of credit let it be recorded that he had the appearance of a man bravely facing death, for he sat erect and made no effort to dismount, which he might have done, for he had not been fastened to the saddle, as that would have made impossible the program mapped out to the minutest detail.

When Redding spun his lariat for Preston's head--after he had ridden past him two or three times while the horsemen lined up like a company of cavalry and looked on--it landed around his shoulders. Redding planted a spur into his cow pony, there was a jump and Preston's body shot up and away from his mount and to the ground.