e the air is sweet and pure, and pollution cometh
not. But there it may not stay; on and yet on it rushes, as helpless
as heedless, till one day it finds itself plunged into some foul
current carrying the off-scourings of half a continent. So on and down
plunged Doc; from stealing Indian ponies to lifting ranch horses was no
long leap in his new code.

Then our stock Association got busy and Billy Lykins took his trail.
Oddly, in a few months the same type of accident in turn saved the life
of each. Their first encounter was single-handed. With the better
horse, Lykins was pressing Doc so close that Doc raced to the crest of
a low conical hill, jumped off his mount, dropped flat on the ground
and covered Lykins with a Springfield rifle, meantime yelling to him:

"Duck, you little Dutch fool; I don't want to kill you"; for they knew
each other well, and in a way were friends.

But Billy never knew when to stop. Deeper into his pony's flank sank
the rowels, and up the hill on Doc he charged, pistol in hand. At
thirty yards Doc pulled the trigger, when--wonder of wonders--the
faithful old Springfield missed fire. Before Doc could throw in
another shell or draw his pistol, Billy was over him and had him
covered.

If my memory rightly serves, the Sidney jail held Doc almost a
fortnight. A few weeks later Doc had assembled a strong gang about
him, rendezvoused on the Piney, a tributary of the lower Niobrara.
There he was far east of Lykins's bailiwick, but a good many degrees
within Lykins's disposition to quit his trail. Accompanied by Major W.
H. H. Llewellyn and an Omaha detective (inappropriately named Hassard),
Lykins located Doc's camp, and the three lay near for several days
studying their quarry.

One morning Llewellyn and Hassard started up the creek, mounted, on a
scout, leaving Lykins and his horse hidden in the brush near the trail.
At a sharp bend of the path the two ran plunk into Doc and five of his
men. Both being unknown to Doc's gang, and the position and odds
forbidding hostilities, they represented themselves as campers hunting
lost stock, and turned and rode back down the trail with the outlaws,
alert for any play their leader might make.

Recognizing his man, Billy lay with his "45" and "70" Sharps
comfortably resting across a log; and when the band were come within
twenty yards of him, he drew a careful bead on Doc's head and pulled
the trigger. By strange coincidence his Sharps missed