212 HUNTING THE GRISLY. 



ing different incidents in the careers of them- 

 selves and their cronies during the winter that 

 had just passed. Soon one of them asked 

 the other what had become of a certain horse, 

 a noted cutting pony, which I had myself 

 noticed the preceding fall. The question 

 aroused the other to the memory of a wrong 

 which still rankled, and he began (I alter one 

 or two of the proper names) : 



" Why, that was the pony that got stole. 

 I had been workin' him on rough ground 

 when I was out with the Three Bar outfit and 

 he went tender forward, so I turned him loose 

 by the Lazy B ranch, and when I come back 

 to git him there wasn't anybody at the ranch 

 and I couldn't find him. The sheep-man who 

 lives about two miles west, under Red Clay 

 butte, told me he seen a fellow in a wolfskin 

 coat, ridin' a pinto bronco, with white eyes, 

 leadin' that pony of mine just two days be- 

 fore ; and I hunted round till I hit his trail 

 and then I followed to where I 'd reckoned he 

 was headin' for the Short Pine Hills. When 

 I got there a rancher told me he had seen the 

 man pass on towards Cedartown, and sure 

 enough when I struck Cedartown I found he 

 lived there in a ' dobe house, just outside the 

 town. There was a boom on the town and 

 it looked pretty slick. There was two hotels 

 and I went into the first, and I says, ' W r here 's 

 the justice of the peace ? ' says I to the bar- 

 tender. 



" ' There ain't no justice of the peace,' 

 says he,' the justice of the peace got shot.' 



