e.
He didn't even take the trouble to answer, but his Winchester lay
across his lap. There wasn't no humour in the situation for him.

"How much is your water for humans?" asks one emigrant.

"Can't you read that sign?" Texas Pete asks him.

"But you don't mean two bits a head for HUMANS!" yells the man. "Why,
you can get whisky for that!"

"You can read the sign, can't you?" insists Texas Pete.

"I can read it all right?" says the man, tryin' a new deal, "but they
tell me not to believe more'n half I read."

But that don't go; and Mr. Emigrant shells out with the rest.

I didn't blame them for raisin' their howl. Why, at that time the
regular water holes was chargin' five cents a head from the government
freighters, and the motto was always "Hold up Uncle Sam," at that.
Once in a while some outfit would get mad and go chargin' off dry; but
it was a long, long way to the Springs, and mighty hot and dusty.
Texas Pete and his one lonesome water hole shorely did a big business.

Late one afternoon me and Gentleman Tim was joggin' along above Texas
Pete's place. It was a tur'ble hot day--you had to prime yourself to
spit--and we was just gettin' back from drivin' some beef up to the
troops at Fort Huachuca. We was due to cross the Emigrant Trail--she's
wore in tur'ble deep--you can see the ruts to-day. When we topped the
rise we see a little old outfit just makin' out to drag along.

It was one little schooner all by herself, drug along by two poor old
cavallos that couldn't have pulled my hat off. Their tongues was out,
and every once in a while they'd stick in a chuck-hole. Then a man
would get down and put his shoulder to the wheel, and everybody'd take
a heave, and up they'd come, all a-trembling and weak.

Tim and I rode down just to take a look at the curiosity.

A thin-lookin' man was drivin', all humped up.

"Hullo, stranger," says I, "ain't you 'fraid of Injins?"

"Yes," says he.

"Then why are you travellin' through an Injin country all alone?"

"Couldn't keep up," says he. "Can I get water here?"

"I reckon," I answers.

He drove up to the water trough there at Texas Pete's, me and Gentleman
Tim followin' along because our trail led that way. But he hadn't
more'n stopped before Texas Pete was out.

"Cost you four bits to water them hosses," says he.

The man looked up kind of bewildered.

"I'm sorry," says he, "I ain't got no four bits. I got my roll lifted
off'n me."

"No wate