Stewart Edward White

“ Finally Uncle Jim came to the front with a suggestion.
"I know of a cave," said he, "close under a butte. It's a big cave, but it has such a steep floor that I don't know as we could stay in it; and it's back the other side of that ridge."
"I don't know how the ridge is to get back over—it was slippery enough coming this way—and the cave may shoot us out into space, but I'd like to look at a dry place anyway," replied the Cattleman. ”

“ Texas Pete did n't do nothin' but sit there and smoke, with a kind of sulky gleam in one corner of his eye. He did n't even take the trouble to answer, but his Winchester lay across his lap. There was n't no humor in the situation for him.
"How much is your water for humans?" asks one emigrant.
"Can't you read that sign?" Texas Pete asks him.
"But you don't mean two bits a head for humans!" yells the man. "Why you can get whisky for that!"
"You can read the sign, can't you?" insists Texas Pete. ”

“ Our way led first through a cañon-bed filled with rounded boulders and rocks, slippery and unstable. Big cottonwoods and oaks grew so thick as partially to conceal the cliffs on either side of us. The rim-rock was mysterious with caves; beautiful with hanging gardens of tree ferns and grasses growing thick in long transverse crevices ”

“ I believe that Texas Pete person cared about as little for killin' a man as for takin' a drink—and he surely drank without an effort. Peaceable citizens just spoke soft and minded their own business; onpeaceable citizens Texas Pete used to plant out in the sage-brush.
Now this Texas Pete happened to discover a water-hole right out in the plumb middle of the desert. He promptly annexed said water-hole, digs her out, timbers her up, and lays for emigrants. He charged two bits a head—man or beast—and nobody got a mouthful till he paid up in hard coin. ”

“ Late one afternoon me and Gentleman Tim Was joggin' along above Texas Pete's place. It was a tur'ble hot day—you had to prime yourself to spit—and we was just gettin' back from drivin' some beef up to the troops at Fort Huachuca. We was due to cross the Emigrant Trail—she's wore in tur'ble deep—you can see the ruts to-day. When we topped the rise we see a little old outfit just makin' out to drag along. ”

“ We drawed into the ranch near midnight, but next mornin' Tim had a long talk with the hoss, and the result was that the whole outfit was instructed to arm up with a pick or a shovel apiece, and to get set for Texas Pete's. We got there a little after noon, turned the old boy out—without firearms—and then began to dig at a place Tim told us to, near that grave of Texas Pete's. In three hours we had the finest water-hole developed you ever want to see. Then the boss stuck up a sign that said:
Public Water-hole. ”

“ The poor kid is plumb dry."
"Two bits a head," says Texas Pete.
At that the woman comes out, a little bit of a baby in her arms. The kid had fuzzy yellow hair, and its face was now flushed red and shiny.
"Surely you won't refuse a sick child a drink of water, sir," says she.
But Texas Pete had some sort of a special grouch; I guess he was just beginning to get his snowshoes off after a fight with his own forty-rod.
"What the h—— are you-all doin' on the trail without no money at all?" he growls, "and how do you expect to get along? Such plumb tenderfeet drive me weary." ”

“ We were some relieved to find the family all right, but Texas Pete had bored one of them poor old crow-bait hosses plumb through the head.
"It's lucky for you you don't get the old man," says Gentleman Tim very quiet and polite. ”

“ I had a kid outfit of h'ar bridle, lots of silver and such, and I used to ride over and be the handsome boy before such outfits as happened along.
They were queer people, most of 'em from Missoury and such-like southern seaports, and they were tur'ble sick of travel by the time they come in sight of Emigrant Pass. Up to Santa Fé they mostly hiked along any old way, but once there they herded up together in bunches of twenty wagons or so, 'count of our old friends Geronimo and Loco. ”

“ Which the man had been standin' there bewildered, the cup hangin' from his finger. At last, looking pretty desperate, he stooped down to dip up a little of the wet from an overflow puddle lyin' at his feet. At the same time the hosses, left sort of to themselves, and bein' drier than a covered bridge, drug forward and stuck their noses in the trough. ”