“I couldn’t figure it but one way, as I say. They wa’n’t nothin’ fur me to do but to git away, locate the sink hole an’ git back with help to chastise the old geezer an’ mebbe git the stuff he was atryin’ to steal. I saved a little chuck each meal fur a couple o’ days, an’ then tried it. O’ course I had to tap the old baldy guard on the head jist heavy enough to keep him still a while. I selected the time jist about daybreak, an’ I thought I was goin’ to hev no more trouble. I was out o’ the gal’ery an’ on the arroyo steps when I got this,” said Mr. Weston tapping the long scar on his arm. “That was frum old high Mucky-Muck hisself. I didn’t allow he had no gun.
“That meant I was two weeks laid up. But the Injuns give me a square deal. They tended me like brothers, even the old one I had to be vi’lent with. Then, one day jist when I was feelin’ it wuz about time to try it agin, who should come in but the boss hisself. You wouldn’t believe what that ole duffer done—hot as it wuz out there in them deserts. An’ I guess he wa’n’t no thief after all er he might a saved hisself all his trouble by just knockin’ me on the head an’ bein’ done with it. He had a hood, made out uv a piece o’ blanket, and some hide strings. With him wuz four old men ready fur travelin’, as I could see. An’ so wuz the white man. Instid o’ his blanket an’ sandals, he had on a white man’s boots, a long black coat and a big hat.
“Without askin’ my leave an’ no special talk among ’em, they tied my arms behind me an’ dropped that black hood over my head.” Weston paused awhile, in which interval he lit anew his long neglected pipe.
“I reckon,” he began again, at last, “ye’ll imagine they took me out on the desert an’ turned me loose. They jist traveled with me two days. An’ the last days we wuz in the mountains. I could see what was comin’, though in all that travelin’ they wa’n’t one word spoke to me.
“That’s whar ole High Mucky-Muck made his mistake. He might as well a’ talked all he wanted. He was wuss off’n I was. But he didn’t know it. That night, like the fust night, they tied my feet, although two o’ the Injun ‘has-beens’ stood guard. We didn’t have no campfire, an’ only meal an’ water fur chuck. I slept all right till it got cold—we wuz well up in the mountains somewhar—an’ then I woke up. My feet an’ hands wuz free and them that brung me two days’ travel wuz gone.
“I understood like it wuz all wrote down. It was jist to be shore I couldn’t never find my way back to them as didn’t relish my company. An’ I cussed. Then I figgered it out. I was lucky to be alive, an’ I turned over an’ went to sleep agin. When it was day, I found they’d left me a bag o’ meal an’ a bottle o’ water.”
Roy’s tense feelings relaxed with the explosive inquiry:
“And that’s how you escaped? But the paper—the funny writing?”
Weston shrugged his shoulders.