“Shut up!” said he to his brother Pitt.  “It’s time we’re gittin’ our grub and pullin’ out.”

Pitt was even taller than Bowie, and under twenty-five in years.  His face was smooth-shaven except for a short, curly black mustache and a little goatee under his mouth His eyes were larger than Bowie’s and deep brown, his hair curled down over his rolling collar, and he moved with an air of ease and grace that were in contrast with the slow power of Bowie.  There was no doubt of it—­Pitt Bushyager was handsome in a rough, daredevil sort of way.

I am describing them, not from the memory of that morning, but because I knew them well afterward.  I knew all the Bushyager boys, and their father and mother and sisters; and in spite of everything, I rather liked both Pitt and Claib.  Bowie was a forbidding fellow, and Asher, who was between Bowie and Pitt in age, while he was as big and strong as any of them, was the gentlest man I ever saw in his manners.  He did more of the planning than Bowie did.  Claiborne Bushyager was about my own age; while Forrest was older than Bowie.  He was always able to convince people that he was not a member of the gang, and now, an old white-haired, soft-spoken man, still owns the original Bushyager farm, with two hundred acres added, where I must confess he has always made enough money by good farming to account for all the property he has.

These men were an important factor in the history of Monterey County for many years, and I knew all of them well; but had they known that I saw them that morning in the grove I guess I should not have lived to write this history; though it was years before the people came to believing such things of them.  The third man in the grove I never saw again.  Judging from what we learned afterward, I think it is safe to say that this Unknown was one of the celebrated Bunker gang of bandits, whose headquarters were on the Iowa River somewhere between Eldora and Steamboat Rock, in Hardin County.  He was a small man with light hair and eyes, and kept both the Bushyagers on one side of him all the time I had them in view.  When he spoke it was almost in a whisper, and he kept darting sharp glances from side to side all the time, and especially at the Bushyagers.  When they left he rode the black horse and led one of the grays.  I know, because I crept back to my own camp, took my breakfast with Virginia, and then spied on the Bushyagers until dinner-time.  After dinner I still found them there arguing about the policy of starting on or waiting until night.  Bowie wanted to start; but finally the little light-haired man had his way; and they melted away across the knolls to the west just after sunset.  I returned with all the air of having driven them off, and ate my third meal cooked by Virginia Royall.

2

I do not know how long we camped in this lonely little forest; for I lost reckoning as to time.  Once in a while Virginia would ask me when I thought it would be safe to go on our way; and I always told her that it would be better to wait.