esence and out he came, a
shot-gun in his hand, fury in his eyes, and his wife clinging to his
coat-tails. No doubt he meant to shoot, but I was quite ready for him
and put a bold face on it. Things looked nasty indeed and I was
determined to fire should he once raise his gun. Perhaps this boldness
made him think a bit, and I was very much relieved indeed when he
resorted to expressive language instead of any more formidable
demonstration. Though it was necessary to tell him that I was come to
take possession of the ranch, he was not on to the affidavit game, and
the result was that on returning to Fort Sumner I swore to having
attempted to take possession but had been resisted by force. As
explained before, such an affidavit was, in the eye of the law, a strong
point in our contention of having taken possession. At least, so our
legal advisers affirmed.

From Fort Sumner I then started for the round-up, taking with me a white
man, the Mexican having got scared and quit. Having bought more horses,
enough to fully mount two men, we joined the work. Fortunately M----'s
outfit had gone up the river with a large herd of cattle, and was during
their absence represented by the foreman of another ranch. What I did
was to get all the foremen together (there were some ten wagons on the
work) and explain to them who I was, that I was there to work and handle
the M---- cattle, that if they would help me I should be obliged, but
they were to understand that they would be regarded as doing it for my
Company. They only said they were going to help in the usual way to
gather the cattle and brand the calves; that I could work or not as I
liked; that, in fact, it was none of their business as to whose the
cattle were. So after working on a bit an affidavit was sent in that I
had "worked" the cattle and had _met no resistance_. But mine was an
extremely disagreeable position.

During this round-up I noticed that M----was carefully gathering all the
steers and bulls of any age he could find. I notified my people and
asked them to send the sheriff down to help me. Things were coming to a
point as it were; it was evidently M----'s intention to drive the
steers out of the territory, knowing that once over the Texas line we
could no longer enjoin him. His whole force of men depended on this to
get their wages out of these steers, as every one of them was at least
three months in arrears, some of them six, twelve, and even eighteen
months. T