PAT F. GARRETT
The most famous peace officer of the Southwest
Pat and his friends were hungry, but all the cash they could find was just one dollar and a half between them. They gave it to Pat and sent him over to the store to see about eating. He asked the price of meals, and they told him fifty cents per meal. They would permit them to eat but once. He concluded to buy a dollar and a half's worth of flour and bacon, which would last for two or three meals. He joined his friends, and they went into camp on the river bank, where they cooked and ate, perfectly happy and quite careless about the future.
As they finished their breakfast, they saw up the river the dust of a cattle herd, and noted that a party were working a herd, cutting out cattle for some purpose or other.
"Go up there and get a job," said Pat to one of the boys. The latter did go up, but came back reporting that the boss did not want any help.
"Well, he's got to have help," said Pat. So
saying, he arose and started up stream himself.
Garrett was at that time, as has been said, of very great height, six feet four and one-half inches, and very slender. Unable to get trousers long enough for his legs, he had pieced down his best pair with about three feet of buffalo leggins with the hair out. Gaunt, dusty, and unshaven, he looked hard, and when he approached the herd owner and asked for work, the other was as much alarmed as pleased. He declined again, but Pat firmly told him he had come to go to work, and was sorry, but it could not be helped. Something in the quiet voice of Garrett seemed to arrest the attention of the cow man. "What can you do, Lengthy?" he asked.
"Ride anything with hair, and rope better than any man you've got here," answered Garrett, casting a critical glance at the other men.