They say that we white men, using our right hands mostly, is strongest on that side, and apt to bear to the left when we don't take note how we run. Anyway, Ryan, instead of circling south, had circled to the left and lost himself, then, when he found he was hunted, went off his head complete. He was back in the yard now, close beside the house, where McCalmont headed him off with a shot from the door, while the robbers spread out half circling. They laughed and shouted.
"My turn first!" says Crazy Hoss.
"Take his off ear, Crazy!"
The shot took Ryan's right ear; then Spotty fired, lopping off the left. The poor brute tried to bolt, but a bullet swung him around. He lifted his hands for mercy, but the next shot smashed his wrist. He screamed, and a bullet caught his teeth. Curly was yelling now, but nobody noticed, for Ryan was down on his knees, and his face was being ripped to pieces. Then I saw McCalmont fire, and one of his dogs dropped dead. He fired again, and killed the other hound. He had saved me from being tracked.
"Quit firing!" he shouted, and the robbers threatened him. "Now," he yelled at them, "who wants to talk war agin my friend Davies and me?"
"Come away," says Curly; and I crept after her.
A man's legs are naturally forked to fit onto a horse, and mine have never been broke to walking afoot. Fact is my legs act resentful when I walk, making me waddle all the same as a duck; which it humbles me to think of, because that Curly person loaded a sack on my withers, and herded me along like a pack mule until I felt no better than a spavined, groaning wreck. We must have gone afoot more than two whole miles before we came out at last on the edge of the Grand Cañon.
At this place, right in under the rim rock, there was a hidden cavern—a fine big place when you got down there, but a scary climb to reach. Half-way down the rock ladder I grabbed a root, which turned out to be a young rattlesnake, and was so surprised that I pretty near took flight. Curly saved me that time from being an angel—which leads me to remark that there's lots of people better adapted to that holy vocation than me.
It was dark when we got to the cavern, but next morning I saw that it was a sure fine hiding-place, the floor being covered with a whole village of old stone houses. There are thousands of cliff villages like this in the cañon country, made by some breed of Indians long gone dead, but this one had special conveniences, because you could spit from the outer wall into sheer eternity. Seeing how the robbers were warped in their judgments of me, and the authorities likewise prejudiced, my health required plenty seclusion then. We stayed in that hole for a week.
Curly was restive, quitting me at night to range the woods and visit the ranche, collecting everything useful which was small enough and loose enough to pull. She got four horses into a hidden pasture, with saddles for the same, and chuck to feed us when we should hit the trail. The plunder was good, but the news she brought smelt bad of coming trouble, for the robbers stayed to quarrel over their shares of past thievings. When they broke to scatter, the trails were all blocked with troops, and then they were herded back into the ranche. On the fourth day I had to make Curly prisoner, while from noon to dusk the battle raged at the stronghold, and she wanted to go and die at her father's side. All that night and the day that followed I kept the poor girl quiet with my gun, then when the darkness came I let her free.