miners, an' they was always cussin' the mines an' wishin' they was back
in the cow-country, so, come spring, we decided to beat it.

"Duffy, he know'd where there was a wild horse range up towards Idaho
an' he wanted we should go up there an' hunt wild horses. Scar Lamento,
he claimed there was more in it to go to Mexico an' start a revolution,
an' Old Pete, an' Mike Hinch, they had each of 'em some other idee. But
Duffy's horse range bein' nearest, we decided to tackle it first. We
started out with a pack outfit--too little grub, an' too much
whisky--an' hit up into the damnedest country of blazin' white flats an'
dead mountains you ever heard tell of.

"To cut it short, we didn't get no wild horses. We was lucky to git out
of there alive. We et the pack horses one by one, an' almost two months
later we come out over in Idaho. We killed a beef an' spent a week
eatin' an' restin' up an' drinkin' real water, an' then we hit north. We
was busted an' one evenin' we come to the railroad. A passenger train
went by all lit up an' folks settin' inside takin' it easy. We pulled
into a patch of timber an' the four of 'em framed it up to hold up the
next train. I was scairt out of a year's growth but I stuck, an' they
left me in the timber to hold the horses. After a while a train come
along an' they flagged her down an' there was a lot of shootin'--nobody
hurt, the boys was just shootin' to scare the folks. I didn't know that,
though, an' believe me, I was scairt. I was jest gettin' ready to beat
it, figgerin' that they'd all be'n killed, when here they come, an'
they'd made a good haul, too. We rode all night an' skirted through the
mountains. Next mornin' we holed up. Old Pete, he said we'd divide the
stuff up after we'd slep so we all turned in but Scar which we posted
him fer a lookout.

"It was plumb dark when I woke up--dark an' still. I laid there a while
thinkin' the others hadn't woke up yet. By an' by I got up an' hunted
around. They'd gone--pulled out on me! They hadn't even left me a horse.
There I was, afoot, an' no tellin' how far from anywheres or what
direction it laid. I learned, then, what it was to hate men. Fer a week
I tromped through them mountains follerin' cricks an' crossin' divides.
I et berries an' what little stuff I could kill with rocks an' clubs. I
killed a deer with my six-shooter an' laid around three days eatin' on
it. At last I come to a ranch an' worked there a month an' then worked
around d