"I thought at the time that it wasn't, but what could he do? The matter had to be investigated, and he had been sent for and couldn't come with me. But he was considerate enough, strongly urging me not to get killed, 'as Rangers were scarce.'"
"That was considerate!"
"Yes, wasn't it? But early the next morning I started for the canyon where the outlaws were said to be in hiding. The riding was fair, so I made good time on the trail and got to the entrance of the canyon about the middle of the day. A few hundred feet from the fork of the stream I came to a little log cabin, occupied by a miner and his family. I took lunch with them and told them my errand. Both the man and his wife begged me not to go up to the camp alone, as they had heard the tie-cutters threaten to kill at sight any stranger found on their land."
"Why didn't you propose that the miner should go up to the camp with you?"
"I did. But he remarked that up to date he had succeeded in keeping out of the cattlemen-lumbermen trouble, and that he was going to keep right along keeping out. He suggested that if there was going to be any funeral in the immediate vicinity he wasn't hankering to take any more prominent part than that of a mourner, and that the title-rôle of such a performance wasn't any matter of envy with him. However, I succeeded in persuading him to come part of the way with me, and secured his promise that he would listen for any shooting, and if I should happen to resign involuntarily from the Service by the argument of a bullet, that he would volunteer as a witness in the case."
"I don't altogether blame him, you know," said the red-headed man; "you said he had a wife there, and interfering with other folks' doings isn't healthy."
"I didn't blame him either," said the first speaker, "but I would have liked to have him along. A little farther up the canyon I came to a recently built log cabin, covered with earth. An old man stood at the door and I greeted him cheerily. We had a moment's chat, and then I asked him the way to the cabin where the tie-cutters lived. Judge of my surprise when he told me this was their cabin, and that they lived with him. By the time I had secured this much information the two younger men had come out, and one of them, Tom, wanted to know what I was after. I stated my business, briefly. There was a pause.
"'Ye 'low as ye're agoin' to jedge them ties,' he said slowly. 'Wa'al I 'low we'll sort 'er go along. Thar's a heap o' fow-el in these yar parts, stranger, an' I 'low I'll take a gun.'
"The other brother, who seemed more taciturn, turned and nodded to two youngsters who had come out of the cabin while Tom was speaking. The elder of the two, a boy about thirteen years old, went into the shack and returned in a moment bringing out two rifles. I turned the broncho's head up the trail, but Tom interposed.
"'I 'low,' he said, 'that ye'll hev ter leave yer horse-critter right hyar; thar ain't much of er trail up the mount'n.'