"I suppose you'd like to know how it happened?"
"Indeed I should."
"I was punching cows for an old fellow called Sam Ford; a man so mean you could pull the pith out of a horse-hair and then put his soul inside, and it would rattle.
"But this story don't concern old Sam, except in so far as I was working for him. He'd got together a fine bunch of cattle. Where he got 'em, no one ever knew exactly, and in them days it wasn't what you'd call healthy to ask questions. Indeed, I've seen many a perfectly healthy man took off sudden, just because he got inquisitive about su'thin', that wasn't none of his business in the first place. But that's neither here nor there. Sam had the cattle, and I was punchin' for him.
"One day Sam come to me and said he wanted me to ride over to a creek near what is now the town of Fairfax, and watch a bunch of about thirty head he told me he just bought. There was a pack of Crow Injuns that we knew was somewhere around there. But in them days it was the same with working for a man as it was about asking questions. If he told you to do anything, it was up to you to do it, or stand the consequences. So I saddled a flee-bitten pinto and set out, though I must say I wasn't particularly keen on going. It had been rumored that Sam
