Supper over, we went out on the porch, lighted our pipes, and devoted two hours to talking. The most of the conversation referred to the time when the cattle would be along and we should get ready to march to Trinity. Everybody suspected that there was going to be a fight up there before our cattle would be allowed water, and we were a little anxious as to how it would come out. We expected to fight the sheriff and his posse and all the Texas Rangers that could be summoned against us; and we knew that these men were just as determined as we were. They were fighting for the crops upon which they had expended so much labor, and it wasn’t likely that they were men who would give way on our demand.
“Let them take a look at our cattle,” said Bob. “That will stop them. The man has yet to be born who can resist the sight of their terrible sufferings.”
“Those men up there would look on without any twinges of conscience if they saw the last one of our herds drop and die before their eyes,” returned his father. “Here’s where we expect to catch them on the fly: We shall be a mile or so behind our cattle, which will be spread out over an immense amount of prairie, and when those cattle get a sniff of the fresh water, fences won’t stop them. It is the momentum of our cattle that will take them ahead.”
I certainly hoped that such would be the case, for I knew there would be some men stationed along the banks of that stream who were pretty sure shots with the rifle. I didn’t care to make myself a target for one of them.
The conversation began to lag after a while, and finally one of the cowboys remarked that sleep had pretty near corralled him and he reckoned he would go in and go to bed; and so they all dropped off, Elam giving my arm a severe pinch as he went by. There was one thing about this arrangement that I did not like. Bill always made his bunk under the trees in the yard. He preferred to have it so. He had been accustomed to sleeping out of doors in the mines, and he was always made uneasy when he awoke and found himself in the house, for fear that he would suffocate. When it rained he would gladly come into the ranch and stay there for a week, if it stormed so long. He gathered up the blankets and the saddle which Mr. Davenport had loaned him for a bed, bade us all a cheerful good-night, and went out to his bunk. There were three of us who knew better than that. His object in sleeping out of doors was, in case some of the men he had robbed found out where he hung out, that he might have a much better chance for escape.
“He’s a cool one,” I thought, as I went in, pulled off my outer clothes, and laid down on my bunk. “I’ll see how he will feel in the morning.”
I composed myself to sleep as I always did, and lay with my eyes fastened on the door; for I knew that there was where that rascal Bill would come in. Both the doors were open, and Elam wouldn’t have the creaking of hinges to arouse him. I laid there until nearly midnight, and had not the least desire to sleep, and all the while I was treated to a concert that anyone who has slumbered in a room with half a dozen men can readily imagine. Such a chorus of snores I never heard before, and what surprised me more than anything else was, the loudest of them seemed to come from Elam’s bunk. Was my friend fairly asleep? I sometimes thought he was, and was on the point of awakening him when I heard a faint noise at the rear door—not the front one, on which my gaze was fastened. My heart beat like a trip-hammer. Slowly, and without the least noise, I turned my head to look in that direction, but could see nothing. All was still for a few seconds, and then the sound was repeated. It was a noise something like that made by dragging a heavy body over the floor; then I looked down and could distinctly see a human head. Bill had not come in erect as I thought he was going to, but had crawled in on his hands and knees, intending, if he were heard, to lie down and so escape detection. Slowly he crawled along until he came abreast of Elam’s bunk and not more than six feet from it, and then there was a commotion in that bunk and Elam’s voice called out:
“Who’s that a-comin’ there? Speak quick!”
An instant later, and before Bill had time to reply the crack of a revolver awoke the echoes of the cabin, and a short but desperate struggle took place in Elam’s direction. Then the pistol cracked again, and in an instant afterward the intruder was gone. It was all done so quickly that, although I had my hand on my revolver under my pillow, I did not have time to fire a shot.
“Elam!” I cried; “what’s the matter?”