Coyote Bill was emphatically a name for us to be afraid of. We had done little else than listen to the stories of his exploits since we had been in Texas. He didn’t do anything very bad, but he would steal a herd of cattle,—it didn’t make much difference how many men there were to guard them,—run them off to a little oasis there was in the Staked Plains, and slaughter them for their hides and tallow; and when the story of the theft had been forgotten, two of his men would carry the proceeds of their hunt to some place and sell them. He never killed men unless they resisted, and then he shot them down without ceremony. Many a time have we sat on the porch after dark when the cowboys were there, listening to the stories about him, and if this man was Coyote Bill he must have been highly amused at some things that were said about him. We were both inclined to doubt the story of his identity. No one had ever seen Coyote Bill, and how could Elam tell what he looked like?
“Elam, you are certainly mistaken,” said I; and the more I thought of his story the less credit I put in it. “If you had seen Coyote Bill I should be tempted to believe you; but you know you have never met him.”
“And then just think what he has done?” added Tom. “He comes up here and agrees with Carlos, a man whom he had never seen before, to go in cahoots with him. The idea is ridiculous. And how did Clifford Henderson fall in with him?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” returned Elam, as if his mind was fully made up. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I’ll bet that Carlos dassent call him Coyote Bill to his face!”
“You may safely bet that, for I aint going to do it,” said I, looking around the corner of the house. “Here he comes, boys. You had better get on your horses and make tracks away from here.”
The boys lost no time in getting off the porch and to their horses, which they had left standing close by with their bridles down, so that they would not stray away. They swung themselves into their saddles with all haste, and I sat down to await the coming of Coyote Bill, if that was his real name, and to think over what I had heard.
CHAPTER IV.
ELAM’S POOR MARKSMANSHIP.
“Coyote Bill!” I kept repeating to myself. That name had probably been given to him by the Texans on account of his being so sneaking and sly—so sly that none of the men he had robbed had ever been able to see him. What his other name was I didn’t know. While I was turning the matter over in my mind Bill came around the corner. I confess he did not look like so dangerous a fellow, and if I had met him on the prairie and been in want, I should have gone to him without any expectation of being refused. He looked surprised to see me sitting there alone.
“Where are they?” he asked, in a whisper.