My reply angered the cattlemen more and before long I became subject to many annoyances. Sheep were found dead, stock was driven off, my ranch hands were shot at, and several times I myself narrowly escaped death at the hands of the enraged cattlemen. I determined not to give in until I received orders to that effect from Mr. Sanford, but I will admit that it was with a feeling of distinct relief that I hailed those orders when they came three years later. For one thing, before the sheep business came up, most of the cattlemen who were now my enemies had been my close friends, and it hurt me to lose their esteem. I am glad to say, however, that most of these cattlemen and cowboys, who, when I ran sheep, would cheerfully have been responsible for my funeral, are my very good friends at the present time; and I trust they will always remain so. Most of them are good fellows and I have always admitted that their side had the best argument.
In spite of the opposition of the cattlemen I made the sheep business a paying one for Mr. Sanford, clearing about $17,000 at the end of three years. When that period had elapsed I had brought shearers to Sanford Station to shear the sheep, but was stopped in my intention with the news that Sanford had sold the lot to Pusch and Zellweger of Tucson. I paid off the men I had hired, satisfied them, and thus closed my last deal in the sheep business. One of the men, Jesus Mabot, I hired to go to the Rodeo with me, while the Chinese gardener hired another named Fernando.
Then occurred that curious succession of fatalities among the Chinamen in the neighborhood that puzzled us all for years and ended by its being impossible to obtain a Chinaman to fill the last man's place.
DEPUTY SHERIFF, CATTLEMAN AND FARMER
You kin have yore Turner sunsets,—he never painted one
Like th' Santa Rita Mountains at th' settin' o' th' sun!
You kin have yore Eastern cornfields, with th' crops that never change,
Me—I've all Arizona, and, best o' all, the Range!
—Woon.
About this time Sheriff Bob Paul reigned in Tucson and made me one of his deputies. I had numerous adventures in that capacity, but remember only one as being worth recording here.
One of the toughest characters in the West at that time, a man feared throughout the Territory, was Pat Cannon. He had a score of killings to his credit, and, finally, when Paul became sheriff a warrant was issued for his arrest on a charge of murder. After he had the warrant Paul came to me.