“Are the Indians much given to making raids on the stockmen hereabouts?” asked Henderson.
“They do it just as often as they get out of meat,” answered Bill. “The only thing that has kept them from it has been the drought. They know what these white men are up to. All this country will be settled up some day, and then what will they do to get something to eat? It will be perfectly safe putting the Indians on him.”
“Well, go on with it,” answered Henderson. “Remember, I don’t go in for lifting a hand against his life. I want him to know what it is to be in poverty. That’s what I am up to.”
“Well, if you find any more poverty-stricken people in the world than the Comanches are, I will give it up,” said Coyote Bill, with a laugh. “Let him stay among them. I will agree to keep him safe for twenty years. Now I will go and see what the men think about it. What do you say to that, Zeke? This is a squaw-man,” he added, turning to Henderson. “The chief and all of them do just as he says.”
“I say you can’t find a purtier place to put a man than among the ’Manches,” said Zeke, as he pulled a pipe out of his pocket and filled up for a smoke. “If you want to put him whar he’ll find poverty, put him thar.”
“But I am afraid to trust the Indians with him,” said Henderson. “They might kill him.”
“Not if the chief says ‘No,’ they won’t. This here is our chief,” he answered, waving his hand toward Coyote Bill. “We aint beholden to nobody when he says we shall go on a raid, an’ I think it high time we were doin’ something. It’s almost sixteen months since we have seen any cattle, an’ we’re gettin’ hungry.”
“Does Sam think the same way?” said Bill.
The man appealed to nodded, and so it came about that we did not see any of Coyote Bill’s men while we were on our way to Austin. In fact there were not enough of them. It would have taken twice the number of our company to have placed their hands on that pocket-book, feeling as we did then.
I never was more shaken up than I was when I rode into Austin, but I didn’t say anything about it. Accustomed as I was to travelling long distances on horseback, I must say that, when we rode up to our hotel and dismounted, I didn’t have strength enough to go another mile. Chisholm was as lively as ever. He got off his horse with alacrity, looked around him and said: