“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 haircut—­with baa-a-rum, I suppose.’

“‘Where’s the boss of this ranch?’ the captain of the gang asks me.

“‘Wait just a minute, cap’n,’ says I.  ’Wasn’t there a kind of a reward offered for the capture of this desperate character you have referred to in your preamble?’

“‘There’s a thousand dollars reward offered,’ says the captain, ’but it’s for his capture and conviction.  There don’t seem to be no provision made for an informer.’

“‘It looks like it might rain in a day or so,’ says I, in a tired way, looking up at the cerulean blue sky.

“’If you know anything about the locality, disposition, or secretiveness of this here Black Bill,’ says he, in a severe dialect, ’you are amiable to the law in not reporting it.’

“‘I heard a fence-rider say,’ says I, in a desultory kind of voice, ’that a Mexican told a cowboy named Jake over at Pidgin’s store on the Nueces that he heard that Black Bill had been seen in Matamoras by a sheepman’s cousin two weeks ago.’

“‘Tell you what I’ll do, Tight Mouth,’ says the captain, after looking me over for bargains.  ’If you put us on so we can scoop Black Bill, I’ll pay you a hundred dollars out of my own—­out of our own—­pockets.  That’s liberal,’ says he.  ’You ain’t entitled to anything.  Now, what do you say?’