“It was in the fall of 1900. This country was just beginning to settle. I was working for old man Jeff Keister’s outfit then, taking a herd through to New Mexico. We’d been on the trail some ten days, I guess, when we came to a ranch in a valley down on the Salt Fork. Keister says a friend of his lives there, and he rides off. After a while two boys ride up and tell us that they will herd the cattle while the outfit goes down to the ranch to dinner.
“When we rode down to the house, Keister and an old man were sitting under a brush arbor that represented the front porch. First thing I noticed about the old man was that one of his arms is only about two-thirds as long as the other, and that he has to put it where he wants it with his other hand. We meets him and sets down to wait for dinner, not saying much but listening some.
“ ‘You’ll find a-plenty good places to hold ‘em nights, Jeff, but about the third night out you will be some’ers near Stampede Mesa. Don’t you try to hold them thar.’
“ ‘I’m aimin’ to hold them right there, Bill,’ Keister says.
“ ‘Now, Jeff, you ain’t forgot that stampede in ’91, have you? Well, maybe you have, but I hain’t. I carry a little souvaneer that won’t let me forget. There was phantom steers in that herd that night. You recollect as how them steers went over the steep side of the mesa, Jeff? I must a been a sight when you found me. It’s right nigh onto twenty year now, and I ain’t moved this old arm since.’
“Well, the wife called dinner just then, and the old man got strung out on something else, but that stampede business jest stuck to my mind.
“Along late one evenin’ old Keister and I were riding the [[115]]drag, when he puts the dogie he’s been a-carryin’ on his saddle down on the ground, and says, ‘Taint fer now, yuh kin walk. We are campin’ on Stampede Mesa, as they call it.’
“ ‘I guess yuh noticed that feller’s arm, back there in the valley,’ says Keister, jerking his hand back toward the way we come.
“ ‘Yes,’ I said, waiting for him to go on.
“ ‘Well, he got it up there on the south side of that mesa. Hoss went plumb crazy. Bill’s allys said they wuz ghost steers in that herd that night. I think I seen ‘em too. They jest came a-sailin’ through the herd and right past your horse. I don’t believe in hants, but it wuz scary.’