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Page 20
"After indulging himself in a lot more non-communicative information
and two-thirds of my dinner, the deputy rides away.
"That night I mentions the matter to Ogden. "'They're drawing the
tendrils of the octopus around Black Bill,' says I. And then I told
him about the deputy sheriff, and how I'd described him to the deputy,
and what the deputy said about the matter.
"'Oh, well,' says Ogden, 'let's don't borrow any of Black Bill's
troubles. We've a few of our own. Get the Bourbon out of the
cupboard and we'll drink to his health--unless,' says he, with his
little cackling laugh, 'you're prejudiced against train-robbers.'
"'I'll drink,' says I, 'to any man who's a friend to a friend. And I
believe that Black Bill,' I goes on, 'would be that. So here's to
Black Bill, and may he have good luck.'
"And both of us drank.
"About two weeks later comes shearing-time. The sheep had to be
driven up to the ranch, and a lot of frowzy-headed Mexicans would snip
the fur off of them with back-action scissors. So the afternoon
before the barbers were to come I hustled my underdone muttons over
the hill, across the dell, down by the winding brook, and up to the
ranch-house, where I penned 'em in a corral and bade 'em my nightly
adieus.
"I went from there to the ranch-house. I find H. Ogden, Esquire,
lying asleep on his little cot bed. I guess he had been overcome by
anti-insomnia or diswakefulness or some of the diseases peculiar to
the sheep business. His mouth and vest were open, and he breathed
like a second-hand bicycle pump. I looked at him and gave vent to
just a few musings. 'Imperial Caesar,' says I, 'asleep in such a way,
might shut his mouth and keep the wind away.'
A man asleep is certainly a sight to make angels weep. What good is
all his brain, muscle, backing, nerve, influence, and family
connections? He's at the mercy of his enemies, and more so of his
friends. And he's about as beautiful as a cab-horse leaning against
the Metropolitan Opera House at 12.30 A.M. dreaming of the plains of
Arabia. Now, a woman asleep you regard as different. No matter how
she looks, you know it's better for all hands for her to be that way.
"Well, I took a drink of Bourbon and one for Ogden, and started in to
be comfortable while he was taking his nap. He had some books on his
table on indigenous subjects, such as Japan and drainage and physical
culture--and some tobacco, which seemed more to the point.
"After I'd smoked a few, and listened to the sartorial breathing of H.
O., I happened to look out the window toward the shearing-pens, where
there was a kind of a road coming up from a kind of a road across a
kind of a creek farther away.
"I saw five men riding up to the house. All of 'em carried guns
across their saddles, and among 'em was the deputy that had talked to
me at my camp.
"They rode up careful, in open formation, with their guns ready. I
set apart with my eye the one I opinionated to be the boss muck-raker
of this law-and-order cavalry.
"'Good-evening, gents,' says I. 'Won't you 'light, and tie your
horses?'
"The boss rides up close, and swings his gun over till the opening in
it seems to cover my whole front elevation.
"'Don't you move your hands none,' says he, 'till you and me indulge
in a adequate amount of necessary conversation.'
"'I will not,' says I. 'I am no deaf-mute, and therefore will not
have to disobey your injunctions in replying.'
"'We are on the lookout,' says he, 'for Black Bill, the man that held
up the Katy for $15,000 in May. We are searching the ranches and
everybody on 'em. What is your name, and what do you do on this
ranch?'
"'Captain,' says I, 'Percival Saint Clair is my occupation, and my
name is sheep-herder. I've got my flock of veals--no, muttons--penned
here to-night. The shearers are coming to-morrow to give them a hair-
cut--with baa-a-rum, I suppose.'
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