At last I, having a good chance, no one being in sight but her and I, threw a kiss, to see how I stood in her estimation. She immediately darted out of sight, but soon re-appeared and peeping around a cluster of roses, returned the compliment. She then left the room and I never seen her again till after dinner.
I then started into the Hotel, but was detained by a voice calling, through the closed blinds of a window near by: "Me ketch you! Me ketch you!" Come to find out it was the proprietor's wife, Mrs. Duper, an old mexican lady, who had been watching our maneuvers. She then opened the blinds and asked me in broken English, what I was trying to do?
"Oh, nothing, much, just trying to catch on, is all;" was my answer.
The old lady then broke out in one of her jovial fits and said: "You ketch on? Me bet you ten tousand dollars you no ketch him!" She then went on and told me how closely the old lady "Grandma Ochoa" watched her young niece. In fact, she gave me the girl's history from the time of her birth: Her father and mother were both dead and she, being the only child, was worth over a million dollars, all in her own name. This of course was good news to me, as it gave my love a solid foundation, and spread a kind of gold-like lining over the young lady's beauty.
Finally, after court had been in session two weeks the Cohglin case was called up. His lawyers were Col. Rynerson and Thornton, while the Territory was represented by Newcomb, District Attorney, and A. J. Fountain whose services Poe had secured.
Mr. Cohglin began to grow restless, for the "Pen" stared him in the face. There were eight indictments against him, but the worst one was where he had butchered the cattle after being notified by me not to.
His only hopes now was to "sugar" the prosecuting Attorney, and that no doubt was easily done, or at least it would have looked easy to a man up a tree. You see Cohglin was worth at least a hundred thousand dollars, and therefore could well afford to do a little sugaring, especially to keep out of the Penitentiary. At any rate whether the Attorney was bought off or not, the trial was put off, on account of illness on said Attorney's part, until the last days of court.
When the case came up again Mr. Prosecuting Attorney was confined to his room on account of a severe attack of cramp-colic. Judge Bristol was mad, and so was Poe. They could see through the whole thing now.
That night Cohglin made a proposition that he would plead guilty to buying stolen cattle knowing they were stolen, if the one case in which he had killed cattle after being notified not to, would be dismissed, or thrown entirely out of court.
It was finally decided to do that, as then he could be sued for damages, so the next day he plead guilty to the above charge, and was fined one hundred and fifty dollars besides costs.