ear, we hurried on, finding Allen’s oxen lying around the water on our arrival.  I met him several years afterward in Denver, Colorado, dressed to kill, barbered, and highly perfumed.  He had just sold eighteen hundred two-year-old steers and had twenty-five thousand dollars in the bank.  “Son, let me tell you something,” said he, as we were taking a drink together; “that Pecos country was a dangerous region to pick up an honest living in.  I’m going back to God’s country,—­back where there ain’t no Injuns.”

Yet Allen died in Texas.  There was a charm in the frontier that held men captive.  I always promised myself to return to Virginia to spend the declining years of my life, but the fulfillment never came.  I can now realize how idle was the expectation, having seen others make the attempt and fail.  I recall the experience of an old cowman, laboring under a similar delusion, who, after nearly half a century in the Southwest, concluded to return to the scenes of his boyhood.  He had made a substantial fortune in cattle, and had fought his way through the vicissitudes of the frontier until success crowned his efforts.  A large family had in the mean time grown up around him, and under the pretense of giving his children the advantages of an older and established community he sold his holdings and moved back to his native borough.  Within six months he returned to the straggling village which he had left on the plains, bringing the family with him.  Shortly afterwards I met him, and anxiously inquired the cause of his return.  “Well, Reed,” said he, “I can’t make you understand near as well as though you had tried it yourself.  You see I was a stranger in my native town.  The people were all right, I reckon, but I found out that it was me who had changed.  I tried to be sociable with them, but honest, Reed, I just couldn’t stand it in a country where no one ever asked you to take a drink.”

A week was spent in crossing the country between the Concho and Brazos rivers.  Not a day passed but Indian trails were cut, all heading southward, and on a branch of the Clear Fork we nearly ran afoul of an encampment of forty teepees and lean-tos, with several hundred horses in sight.  But we never varied our course a fraction, passing within a quarter mile of their camp, apparently indifferent as to whether they showed fight or allowed us to pass in peace.  Our bluff had the desired effect; but we made it an object to reach Fort Griffin near midnight before camping.  The Comanche and his ally were great respecters, not only of their own physical welfare, but of the Henri and Spencer rifle with which the white man killed the buffalo at the distance of twice the flight of an arrow.  When every advantage was in his favor—­ambush and surprise—­Lo was a warrior bold; otherwise he used discretion.

CHAPTER IV

A FATAL TRIP