oth, took the money, and crossed
into Mexico. He hid their bodies, and it was months before they were
missed, and a year before their bones were found. He had plenty
of time to go to the ends of the earth before his crime would be
discovered.

"Now that Mexican would never think of betraying the banker, his old
friend and patron, his _muy bueno amigo_. There were obligations that
he could not think of breaking with the banker; but these fool sheep
men, supposing it was simple honesty, paid the penalty of their
confidence with their lives. Now, when he rode over this same road
alone, a few months before, with over five thousand dollars in money
belonging to these same men, all he would need to have done was to
ride across the river. When there were no obligations binding, he was
willing to add murder to robbery. Some folks say that Mexicans are
good people; it is the climate, possibly, but they can always be
depended on to assay high in treachery."

"What guard are you going to put me on to-night?" inquired old man
Carter of Baugh.

"This outfit," said Baugh, in reply, "don't allow any tenderfoot
around the cattle,--at night, at least. You'd better play you're
company; somebody that's come. If you're so very anxious to do
something, the cook may let you rustle wood or carry water. We'll fix
you up a bed after a little, and see that you get into it where you
can sleep and be harmless.

"Colonel," added Baugh, "why is it that you never tell that experience
you had once amongst the greasers?"

"Well, there was nothing funny in it to me," said Carter, "and they
say I never tell it twice alike."

"Why, certainly, tell us," said the cattle-buyer. "I've never heard
it. Don't throw off to-night."

"It was a good many years ago," began old man George, "but the
incident is very clear in my mind. I was working for a month's wages
then myself. We were driving cattle out of Mexico. The people I
was working for contracted for a herd down in Chihuahua, about four
hundred miles south of El Paso. We sent in our own outfit, wagon,
horses, and men, two weeks before. I was kept behind to take in the
funds to pay for the cattle. The day before I started, my people drew
out of the bank twenty-eight thousand dollars, mostly large bills.
They wired ahead and engaged a rig to take me from the station where I
left the railroad to the ranch, something like ninety miles.

"I remember I bought a new mole-skin suit, which was very popular