“Have I ever told this outfit my experience with the vigilantes when I was a kid?” inquired Bull Durham.  There was a general negative response, and he proceeded.  “Well, our folks were living on the Frio at the time, and there was a man in our neighborhood who had an outfit of four men out beyond Nueces Canon hunting wild cattle for their hides.  It was necessary to take them out supplies about every so often, and on one trip he begged my folks to let me go along for company.  I was a slim slip of a colt about fourteen at the time, and as this man was a friend of ours, my folks consented to let me go along.  We each had a good saddle horse, and two pack mules with provisions and ammunition for the hunting camp.  The first night we made camp, a boy overtook us with the news that the brother of my companion had been accidentally killed by a horse, and of course he would have to return.  Well, we were twenty miles on our way, and as it would take some little time to go back and return with the loaded mules, I volunteered, like a fool kid, to go on and take the packs through.

“The only question was, could I pack and unpack.  I had helped him at this work, double-handed, but now that I was to try it alone, he showed me what he called a squaw hitch, with which you can lash a pack single-handed.  After putting me through it once or twice, and satisfying himself that I could do the packing, he consented to let me go on, he and the messenger returning home during the night.  The next morning I packed without any trouble and started on my way.  It would take me two days yet, poking along with heavy packs, to reach the hunters.  Well, I hadn’t made over eight or ten miles the first morning, when, as I rounded a turn in the trail, a man stepped out from behind a rock, threw a gun in my face, and ordered me to hold up my hands.  Then another appeared from the opposite side with his gun leveled on me.  Inside of half a minute a dozen men galloped up from every quarter, all armed to the teeth.  The man on leaving had given me his gun for company, one of these old smoke-pole, cap-and-ball six-shooters, but I must have forgotten what guns were for, for I elevated my little hands nicely.  The leader of the party questioned me as to who I was, and what I was doing there, and what I had in those packs.  That once, at least, I told the truth.  Every mother’s son of them was cursing and cross-questioning me in the same breath.  They ordered me off my horse, took my gun, and proceeded to verify my tale by unpacking the mules.  So much ammunition aroused their suspicions, but my story was as good as it was true, and they never shook me from the truth of it.  I soon learned that robbery was not their motive, and the leader explained the situation.

“A vigilance committee had been in force in that county for some time, trying to rid the country of lawless characters.  But lawlessness got into the saddle, and had bench warrants issued and served on every member of this vigilance committee.  As the vigilantes numbered several hundred, there was no jail large enough to hold such a number, so they were released on parole for appearance at court.  When court met, every man served with a capias”—­