"'Why not?' I said. 'Have you boys seen any Indians round?'
"'No, they hadn't seen any.'
"'Nobody been joshing[6] you, I suppose?'
"'Oh, no! Joshing them?—not much!'
"'Well,' said I, 'I don't know! It's the first talk that we've heard of Indians, and we've driven all through the country. But if you boys are frightened that there 're any about, why, you bunch up, and keep together until you feel safe. I don't suppose the Indians will hurt the cows any.'
"So, we got to talking about other things, and pretty soon Mat Campbell slid out on his ear and got his horse, and went off without saying a word; then Reid and Dan Patch pulled out—as quiet as sick monkeys. In about ten minutes there were only ourselves and Lou Sherlock left; they'd all skinned out, every man Jack of them. And you bet, grease-bush and cactus caught it for a day or two; the boys had to take it out of something."
A shimmering bar of yellow, faintly tinged with red here and there, marked a distant line of autumnal foliage, in the direction of Animas Peak.
"Yonder lies the Double Adobes—near those cotton-woods," said the Colonel, pointing towards it. "To the left—there—is Pigpen's place, and to the right—in that second deep cañon under the shoulder of the Peak—is what they call Indian Springs, where there are some curious Indian drawings on the rocks. There is permanent water at all those places; and in spring and summer there is any quantity of water away back in those hills, and oceans of feed for the cattle too. They drift back there then, and give the valley a rest."
On we drove past the tumble-down adobe huts, that had once been inhabited by Curly Bill, Russian Bill, Black Jack, Cunningham, and other celebrities of their type, whose stronghold and cache for stolen cattle Animas Valley had been a few years ago. Then the "rustlers" had congregated there in force, the locality affording exceptional advantages for their chief occupation, namely, "running off" cattle and horses from either side of the border. Many a spot is pointed out as the scene of a sanguinary skirmish between these modern moss-troopers, and the owners and their followers (Mexican or American), whom they had despoiled and were endeavouring to escape from. And many a local legend relates how the "rustlers" were overtaken and surrounded or besieged in this or that adobe or pass, lost their booty, obtained reinforcements and recaptured it, were similarly outnumbered and again stripped by their pursuers, and so on, with glowing details of the feats performed in these encounters. But more prudent and artistic methods of spoliation have spread with civilisation and the law from the East. And now, although some ambitious youngster, or knot of youngsters, burning to emulate the thefts and assassinations that are the eternal theme of frontier history under the red line of "Bills" (Why should nineteen-twentieths of these butchers have been named "Bill," by the way?), occasionally sneak off with an old man's burro or a steer or two, or blow the top off some unoffending Mexican's head, the halcyon days of such knight-errantry are gone. It is no longer customary, when you hire or borrow a horse, to ask its nominal owner before setting out, "which way it is good?" The sheriff and his posse are quickly on the trail of any young aspirants to fame, and as a rule they are soon brought into town, handcuffed, red-eyed, and penitent.
A jury of fat store-keepers, saloon proprietors, and rancheros, without romance or remorse in them, but all more or less interested in preserving unimpeded the rolling of the dollar, sits in judgment over them, and if the case admits of it, and the offenders are too poor to buy themselves off, glibly sentences them to be hung by the neck until dead; whilst the populace, instead of rising en masse to rescue the heroes, as might have been the case formerly, rush en masse to buy copies of that journal which gives the most intimate and repulsive details of their execution. These are not healthy times for vulgar crimes. Education has refined our minds, and broadened our views. It is as hard as ever, perhaps, to offend our morals, but our taste in crime, as in other matters, has become fastidious.