He drew back. "I don't know. One or two sheriffs have them in the states."
"They couldn't send them out of their own districts. And, Brat—if our interests in this business got wind! No, we must get José—and work up a good enough case for the defense. A jury would say it served Red Saunders right, and as to De Hamel, he was only wounded."
III
There are so many narratives of the famous man-hunt, official, published, suppressed, or even truthful, that I am cumbered with too much material.
The official version may be set aside as dull, a record of mileage covered by one hundred sixty horsemen during a period of four months. The district combed was about ninety miles square, or eighty-one hundred square miles of foot-hills and plains complex with brush, with boulder tracts, and ravines affording plenty of cover to a hunted man.
My own story, were I to cite the details, would explain a feverish industry, a craze for duty, a seeking and using of even the flimsiest excuses to shove Mr. Sarde out of the hunt, and take his place as leader on the patrols. In truth, I was not concerned to save my brother officer from overwork, or to win his gratitude, but rather to avert a meeting between Sarde and Don José. Sarde had betrayed a woman, using the mean device of a sham wedding; when brought to account by La Mancha in the duel outside Fort Carlton, the cad played foul; and if my friend met his antagonist in the field he would unquestionably kill. I would have offered myself as La Mancha's second for that just duel, but I preferred a formal mannerly encounter as between gentlemen, and had reason to dislike, to prevent by all means possible the killing of Sarde by Charging Buffalo, as a deed which must bring my friend to a shameful death at the gallows. My main hope in the man-hunt was to make the arrest myself, averting further bloodshed. José would not shoot me.
There are other versions of the story, melodramatic press reports which use the facts as a mere groundwork for building up sensation, but in the interest of truth, I set down here my private notes of what Don José told me. After his capture, I had the prisoner brought before me at the orderly room, placed the two sentries on guard outside the building, produced a flask of whisky and some cigarettes, then took down a more or less official "statement" for use at the pending trial.
It was ever so curious to see the impassive Indian change at an instant into the Spaniard, the cavalier, amused, sympathetic. And as the narrative went on, he swung from mood to mood.
"Oh, Buckie, don't get mixed! I'm to be hanged, not you, so why look so damp? You blighter, I never had such fun in all my life. Tell the Society for the Promotion of Cruelty to Animals that foxes invented hunting. They had merely to run away, and 'Tally-ho!' the hunt was up and out.
"Shocked, Buckie? Does you good! These last years I was getting to be a prig, too precious high-falutin for God's merry winds and laughing, sparkling sunshine. I doubt, old chap, that the winged seraphim are vain of their pinions and their singing, as any peacock.