Arrived in Saline, Mr. Hunter lost no time in putting himself in communication with the sheriff there, who seemed to Mr. Hunter not to be entirely reliable; indeed, from a careful survey of faces of the loungers in the bar-room of the one-horse town of border settlers, the sheriff appeared to be hand-in-glove with the thief, so he concluded that his only chance of any help in the matter could come from the landlord and the telegraph operator,—the latter having sent messages from the rogue to Aurora, while detained there by the depth of snow. But no time was to be lost, and a desperate effort must be made.
Mr. Hunter went into the bar-room with the sheriff, after breakfast, and a crowd was sitting around the stove. The rogue was sent for with a message that "a gentleman wished to speak with him." He came into the room presently, picking his teeth, and putting on an assumed air of indifference; he looked at the detective with a coolness quite refreshing, as he stepped up to the bar and called for cigars, saying, "Gentlemen, who'll have a smoke? I don't see any gentleman here that I know, besides myself."
"How are you, Ned?" said Mr. Hunter. "You don't know me?"
"Gentlemen," replied he, "on my honor, before God, I never saw this man before in my life! This is a put-up game of a man named Stone, to bilk me out of my fast horse; and (putting his hand on his six-shooter in his belt) no man shall get this horse, which I bought, or me either, alive."
The detective with great presence of mind assured him that his game was up; that the first motion he made of resistance he was a dead man! Then drawing a pair of manacles from his pocket, he soon clasped them on his prisoner's wrists, and relieved the rogue of his pistols, handing them over to the barkeeper for safety. He was taken to his room to pick up his traps, until the horse could be saddled up to return.
By this time a reaction had taken place among the crowd, who seemed to sympathize with the thief, and some exclaimed against taking him, and for all they knew, he might be innocent. Here was a new danger not expected. If these fifteen or twenty hard-looking customers should take it into their heads to vote the man guiltless, there was an end to justice, and the detective might find himself suspended from the nearest cottonwood limb of a tree, dangling like Mohammed's coffin, between heaven and earth! But as good luck would have it, the irons pressed tightly and painfully on the wrists of the captive, and he cried from his room, "Hunter! oh, Hunter! come and loose these cursed irons,—they're killing me!"
"Now, gentlemen," said Hunter, "you see whether he knows me or not." To the prisoner he said, "I'll loosen them if you'll tell all about it." He came in and said, "Yes, I stole the horse; I'm a thief, and that man is a detective of the government from Cheyenne."
Of course, here all danger should end, and my story cease. But the truth is, something new turned up very often to embarrass the journey back to Cheyenne. After leaving Fort Harker, a new dodge was attempted, but different from the one that Paddy essayed when he greased the horse's mouth to save the oats. Leaving the culprit in irons at Fort Harker, the detective proceeded on to Fort Ellsworth, Kansas, from which place he started in the morning with his horse, in high hopes of reaching Cheyenne in a few days.
But alas for the vanity of human hopes and expectations! Having ridden about fifteen miles, the horse came to a sudden pause, and acted like one afflicted with spring-halt. Stopping at a ranch near by, after a careful examination, it was found that some precious villains had tied some silk cords on his legs underneath the fetlocks, thoroughly crippling him, so he could hardly move a limb. They hoped to lame the horse till he could be stolen again! But it was not successful. This journey of seventeen hundred miles cost the sum of six hundred dollars. But the horses were valued at fifteen hundred dollars, and it was right to put a stop, if possible, to the crime so common in the West of stealing horses, and one which subjects the culprit to a ball in his body, if needful to recapture stolen stock, and all say it is just and right, as a man's horse there may, in some cases, be "his life."
But the fellow while in limbo sawed off the chain and ball from his leg and escaped. He, moreover, had the impudence to write a saucy letter to Mr. Hunter, telling him "that the caged bird had flown, and the probability of their never meeting again!"