CHAPTER XIII.

JUDGE LYNCH-AN INCIDENT OF EARLY PACIFIC RAILROAD TRAVEL.

THE train for San Francisco was standing in the Omaha station awaiting the transfer of the passengers, luggage, and the mails from the East. I stood before the window of a telegraph office writing a dispatch, when a rather roughly clad person of unprepossessing appearance said to me:

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"Neighbor, would you mind writin' one of them telegrafts for me?"

"Not at all," I said, "if you will dictate it."

"Oh, yes!" he exclaimed, "I'll pay the shot; I ain't no sponge!"

"I mean," I said, "that I will write it if you will tell me what you wish to have written."

"Sartain!" he replied, scratching his head as if reflecting. Then after a moment he said: "Write'On the train, four o'clock, in Omaha. We've got him!'

"But no one can understand such a dispatch. To whom is it to be sent? Whom have you got? What name shall be signed to it?"

"Send it to the boys. They will know who it comes from. Oh, they will understand it."

"The message cannot be sent unless you name some place."

"Yes, thet's so! Well, tell the ticker sharp to

send it to Evanston, Echo, Green River, any of them places along there, just as he likes."

Finding that I had an original to deal with, and in order to make him solely responsible, I said: “I will write whatever you say. Now begin!" "All right!" he exclaimed.

to you straight.
"To the Boys.

It's four o'clock.

Write!"

"Now I will give it And I wrote as follows: We're on the train in Omaha. We've got him."

"Tell the ticker chap to send it to Evanston."

He handed the message to the operator, offering him two prices if he would "crack her right along," thanked me, entered the smoking-car, and the train rolled away.

I arranged my section for the long ride and went forward. In the small room in the smoker were four men. One of them, who sat in a corner, was a man of gigantic stature, with the most repulsive face I ever saw on a human being save one-that of Judge Terry, of California. It was deeply pitted by the small-pox and crossed by scars which distorted his mouth and gave a savage leer to his right eye. His mat of coarse black hair was partly covered by a broad sombrero, once white, but now the color of alkali-dust. His huge hands were locked in handcuffs each of his splay feet was shackled to an iron bar which was fastened to the iron support of the seat by a heavy chain and padlock. He wore a coat and breeches of smoke-tanned leather, ornamented with long fringes of the same material. Altogether he was a person I would have avoided as carefully in the open day as in the darkness of midnight. His fellow-travellers evidently had the monster in charge. They were men of the same type as my friend of the

telegram, and each openly carried, with the handle projecting from his hip-pocket, a Colt's revolver of the largest calibre. My new acquaintance shook me cordially by the hand, motioned me to a seat opposite him and near the door of the small room. After some indifferent talk, he said he supposed I would like to know what the game was, and proceeded to give me the following explanation:

"Me and my mates there watching the Greaser work in the coal-yards at Evanston, near Green River, where we buy our truck and are well known. Last winter a young Englishman came to Green River to hunt elk and b'ar. He didn't freeze to his money, neither did he throw it away. He was a tender-foot, but a white one. No man went cold nor hungry around his camp, and when the black fever come he never run a rod. He stayed by the boys, for he was a young doctor, and them that did as he told 'em got well. There was nothing he wouldn't do for the boys, and you may just bet your pile the boys swore by him. He took an old mate of mine for his pard; they made long trips, and sometimes were gone for a month. Each of them carried a Winchester besides his knife and revolver. He had two good saddle-horses and fixings, with burros to carry the camp traps and provisions.

"One day they started for a trip down to the big canyon. Two days later one of the horses came into Green River with a broken bridle. It was suspicioned that they was in trouble. The sheriff, a square man, who didn't scare for a tribe of Injuns, said he was bound he'd find out what was the matter. He started alone on the trail-which was keerless.

"After three or four days, when nothing had been

heard of the sheriff, that Greaser that you see and a half-breed Comanche rode into Green River, one of them on the sheriff's horse and one on that of the Englishman. They flourished the guns and other arms of the hunting party, hazed the whiskey-shops, drank and took what they pleased without pay, got whoopin' drunk, fired off their guns, and rode off toward Evanston. The Green River fellers ain't no sneaks; but it was done so sudden that they were s'prised-like, and the rascals got off without a shot.

"That Greaser's name is Jesus Ramon. Any Greaser is a bad egg, but he is the worst of the lot. He is as strong as a bull, as quick as a cat, as mean as a thief, and as murderous as an Arrapahoe. He has lived by murder and robbery and horse-stealing, and most of the ranchmen are afraid of him, though at the bottom he is a coward. The Injun was afraid of him, though he too was quick on the shot. Well, this Ramon and the Comanche came over to Evanston to try the Green River game over again. But some of our boys got the drop on them in the first pulque-shop they struck in our pueblo. They had to come down and go to the corral, where watchers were put over them for the night.

66 Four of us then started out on the southern trail. We only had to ride about sixty miles. The buzzards were sailing in the air over an arroyo where a pack of coyotes were snarling and snapping over what was left of the sheriff, the Englishman, and his pard. Their heads and enough of their bodies were left to show that the hunters had been brained with hatchets, probably while they were asleep; and the sheriff had been shot in the back just as he had reached the bodies of the others. We didn't waste

any words. We buried what the wolves had left under a big mound of heavy stones. Not a word was spoke, but each of us knew that the three others had decided to attend personally to the case of Jesus Ramon.

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When we got home we found that he had bolted. The night had been cold, a fire had been built, and in some way the Mexican, who was bound with cords, had contrived to burn them off. I have told you how strong and cute he was. He waited till midnight, when he made a dash, struck down his two guards with a stick of wood, and got away in the darkness. At the nearest ranch he stole a horse and made off.

"Then we had a caucus. The Comanche, who had slept off his drunk, found he was to leave for the happy hunting-grounds, and told us the story. The Greaser had murdered the first two in their sleep and shot the sheriff in the back while he was examining the bodies of the others. We talked the matter over, and made up our minds that our camp would be disgraced if the Greaser was not brought back and punished. We four volunteered to bring him."

"What became of the Indian?" I asked.

"We hung him to start with. He wasn't no account, anyway. He was best out of the way. We've got a rule in our camp that when a man is sent for he's bound to come back or be accounted for. The men who go for him have got no call to come back until they bring their man. Sometimes they bring him on a horse, sometimes in a box. I don't remember no case where the man didn't come.

"The chase this Greaser led us would have thrown