SHERIFF'S WORK ON A RANCH 



115 



real scoundrels, either through carelessness and misapprehension or on 

 account of some personal spite. 



The three men we suspected had long been accused — justly or unjustly 

 — of being implicated both in cattle-killing and in that worst of frontier 

 crimes, horse-stealing : it was only by an accident that they had escaped the 

 clutches of the vigilantes the preceding fall. Their leader was a well-built 

 fellow named Finnigan, who had long red hair reaching to his shoulders, 

 and always wore a broad hat and a fringed buckskin shirt. He was rather 

 a hard case, and had been chief actor in a number of shooting scrapes. 

 The other two were a half-breed, a stout, muscular man, and an old Ger- 

 man, whose viciousness was of the weak and shiftless type. 



We knew that these three men were becoming uneasy and were anxious 

 to leave the locality ; and we also knew that traveling on horseback, in the 

 direction in which they would wish to go, was almost impossible, as the 

 swollen, ice- fringed rivers could not be crossed at all, and the stretches of 

 broken ground would form nearly as impassable barriers. So we had little 

 doubt that it was they who had taken our boat ; and as they knew there 

 was then no boat left on the river, and as the country along its banks was 

 entirely impracticable for horses, we felt sure they would be confident 

 that there could be no pursuit. 



Accordingly we at once set to work in our turn to build a flat-bottomed 

 scow, wherein to follow them. Our loss was very annoying, and might 

 prove a serious one if we were long prevented from crossing over to look 

 after the saddle-band ; but the determining motive in our minds was 

 neither chagrin nor anxiety to recover our property. In any wild country 

 where the power of the law is little felt or heeded, and where every one 

 has to rely upon himself for protection, men soon get to feel that it is in 

 the highest degree unwise to submit to any wrong without making an 

 immediate and resolute effort to avenge it upon the wrong-doers, at no 

 matter what cost of risk or trouble. To submit tamely and meekly to 

 theft, or to any other injury, is to invite almost certain repetition of the 

 offense, in a place where self-reliant hardihood and the ability to hold one's 

 own under all circumstances rank as the first of virtues. 



Two of my cowboys, Seawall and Dow, were originally from Maine, and 

 were mighty men of their hands, skilled in woodcraft and the use of the 

 ax, paddle, and rifle. They set to work with a will, and, as by good luck 

 there were plenty of boards, in two or three days they had turned out 

 a first-class flat-bottom, which was roomy, drew very little water, and 

 was dry as a bone ; and though, of course, not a handy craft, was easily 

 enough managed in going down-stream. Into this we packed flour, coflee. 



