ex--the one
we came to know so well and to love a year ago. So I told them to stop
shooting and I would go in and try to straighten things out. Tex had
been drinking a little and he was obstinate. He had defied the marshal
to arrest him and he absolutely refused to submit to arrest. I don't
blame him much. The marshal is a fool and he thought, or pretended to
think, that Tex was some terrible desperado, and he intended to hold him
in jail indefinitely until he could look up his record.

"Tex managed to get out of the building and he jumped onto a horse and
dashed right through the crowd, sending them sprawling in all
directions. As he started down the trail they began to shoot at him, and
men began to mount horses to ride after him. I knew they would kill
him--and what had he done? Nothing! Except shoot a few bottles and
things and break some windows--and they would have killed him for that!

"I knew they wouldn't dare shoot me, so before they could get onto their
horses, I swung into the trail behind him so they would have to stop
shooting. On and on I dashed through the darkness. At first I could hear
the sounds of pursuit, yells and curses and shots, but my horse was
faster than theirs and the sounds died away. He had almost reached the
river when I overtook him. His horse had gone lame and we barely made
the ferry-boat ahead of the mob. He tried to send me back as he led his
horse onto the ferry--but I knew that the moment he shoved off from
shore those fiends would kill him--he wouldn't have had a chance. So
before he could prevent me, I followed him onto the boat and cut the
rope that held it and we drifted out into the river--but the men on the
bank didn't dare to shoot. He would have put back then if he could, but
the current was too strong and it carried us farther and farther from
shore.

"Then a great tree drifted down against us, and to save the boat from
being swamped, Tex seized the ax and hacked the cable in two. The tree
hit his head and knocked him senseless for a time. I bandaged it the
best I could by the light of the lightning flashes, and we drifted on,
fighting the flood and the trees. The boat sprang a leak and we bailed
and bailed, and the next thing I knew he was shaking me, and day was
just breaking, and we were close to shore. And he tied the rope to the
saddle of my horse and made him jump overboard and we followed. That's
the last I remember--jumping into the water--until I awoke, it must