Daylight showed the blue-roan missing, and the wagon boss swore a solemn oath that, if ever again he was captured, he would be necked and also have his head tied down to a foot until he was safely inside the stockyards.
Four weeks later a party of cattle men, gathering steers in the mountains, ran across the blue outlaw, right on the brink of a deep, rough cañon. He was seen, with the aid of a glass, across a bend in the cañon lying under the rim rock in fancied security. Near him were several other steers, and it was determined to make the attempt to capture the lot.
Carefully driving their bunch of gentle steers as close to the place where the outlaw was lying as they could, with the thought that, if he ran up the trail, he would see the steers and possibly go to them and stop; three men rode into the cañon some distance below and started up the trail toward where he was lying.
The instant the blue-roan saw the horsemen he jumped to his feet, hesitated a moment, and instead of taking the smooth trail out, dove down the steep, rocky sides of the cañon where neither horse nor man could follow.
Surefooted as he was, he misjudged his agility and strength, and plunged into a mass of loose rock, which gave him no foothold. The walls of the cañon were frightfully steep and in the loose rock, sliding, slipping, and rolling, he was swiftly hurried towards the edge of a cliff two hundred feet high, over which he dropped to death and destruction. Tons of loose rock followed him to the bottom, making a roar like a thousand cannons. It was the end of the road for the blue-roan.
When the men climbed down the trail to see just what had happened they found him dead and half buried in the mass of fallen rock.
The cliff was an over-hanging one, smooth and soft enough to show markings, and one of the men, taking a piece of hard flintrock, spent half an hour cutting deep into the smooth, white wall the words:
"Here died the Blue-Roan Outlaw. He was a King."
