nder arrest; your
cattle are in my possession this very minute. You understand that,
don't you? Very well, then; everybody come up and have a drink on
the sheriff's office.' That was about the talk in every saloon and
dance-hall visited. But when we proposed starting back to camp, about
midnight, the big deputy said to Flood: 'I want you to tell Colonel
Lovell that I hold a warrant for his arrest; urge him not to put me to
the trouble of coming out after him. If he had identified himself to me
this afternoon, he could have slept on a goose-hair bed to-night instead
of out there on the mesa, on the cold ground. His reputation in this
town would entitle him to three meals a day, even if he was under
arrest. Now, we'll have one more, and tell the damned old rascal that
I'll expect him in the morning.'"

We rode out the watch together. On returning to Flood's camp, they had
found Don Lovell awake. The old man was pleased with the report, but
sent me no special word except to exercise my own judgment. The cattle
were tired after their long tramp of the day before, the outfit were
saddle weary, and the first rays of the rising sun flooded the mesa
before men or animals offered to arise. But the duties of another day
commanded us anew, and with the cook calling us, we rose to meet them.
I was favorably impressed with Tupps as a segundo, and after breakfast
suggested that he graze the cattle over to the North Platte, cross it,
and make a permanent camp. This was agreed to, half the men were
excused for the day, and after designating, beyond the river, a clump of
cottonwoods where the wagon would be found, seven of us turned and rode
back for Ogalalla. With picked mounts under us, we avoided the other
cattle which could be seen grazing northward, and when fully halfway to
town, there before us on the brink of the mesa loomed up the lead of
a herd. I soon recognized Jack Splann on the point, and taking a wide
circle, dropped in behind him, the column stretching back a mile and
coming up the bluffs, forty abreast like an army in loose marching
order. I was proud of those "Open A's;" they were my first herd, and
though in a hurry to reach town, I turned and rode back with them for
fully a mile.

Splann was acting under orders from Flood, who had met him at the
ford that morning. If the cattle were in the possession of any deputy
sheriff, they had failed to notify Jack, and the latter had already
started for the North Platte of hi