“Bolton got off light,” said Tom Tyler. “Over at Las Vegas two years ago a sheep man called ‘Doc’ Kinnie a liar and before the fellow could think twice Doc had his ear sliced off, and he went around afterwards using it for a beer check. He would call up the house and pay for the drinks with the sheepman’s ear; he always redeemed it, though, for fear the owner would buy it back.” “Cut it out, boys, cut it out, get to roost in your blankets,” said the boss. “We hit the trail at 5 o’clock in the morning and make the drive to Cimarron by noon.”
An hour later, the fire had smouldered to embers, the stars twinkled in the great dark blue dome of the sky, a soft south breeze fanned the Oklahoma plains and all was silent, save the tramp of horses’ hoofs as the outriders circled the herd of bedded cattle.
[XVIII.]
THE LONE GRAVE ON THE MESA.
High upon the mesa northwest of Colorado City, Colo., and near the old cemetery used by the pioneers of the early sixties, there is a lonely grave, around which clings a romance of the early days, which is recalled by the phenomena which many persons say they have witnessed when passing at night.
As the story goes, Marie Tinville, the beautiful daughter of Victor Tinville lived with her parents in a cabin near Colorado City, in 1863. About that time Leon Murat, a dashing young fellow of about 20 years came out from St. Louis and found employment on her father’s ranch. It was a case of love at first sight, intensified by isolated conditions and an almost constant companionship.
The cabin stood near the now famous Garden of the Gods, and many were the evenings the young people wandered among the towering rocks in the wondrous bright moonlight of that region, and talked of love, while the shadows of Pike’s Peak shrouded the dreamy valley.
Love’s young dream was rudely awakened one day in the autumn of 1864, by the call to arms to join Colonel Chivington in his campaign against the hostile Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians, who were then murdering the settlers of Colorado.