When Coyote Bill and Jack had disappeared, and a glance in the direction Henderson had gone showed me that he also had vanished, I began to think about myself. I was alone on the prairie, but I didn’t care for that as much as I did for the safety of Bob Davenport and the men who had gone away with him. I staked out my horse, and while I was thinking about it, it occurred to me that now was the time to find Henderson’s revolver. I had taken particular notice of where it fell; and after half an hour’s looking I had the satisfaction of securing the weapon which had so nearly been the cause of my death. It was silver-mounted, of forty-five calibre, just big enough to take the cartridges intended for his rifle, and on the trigger-guard bore the name of its luckless owner, Clifford Henderson.
“Good!” said I, taking my steps back toward the ranch. “As often as I look at it I shall remember him, and if Bob doesn’t want it, I will always keep it. Let’s see what effect this bullet would have had upon me.”
Sitting on a tree close by was a robin--I knew that the weather was getting cold up North, for the birds had already come down to us--and I tried the bullet on the robin from where I stood, and saw him come down without his head. If Clifford Henderson was as good a shot as I was, he could not well have missed me at that distance.
The next thing was to find something to eat, and then came a pipe, during which I thought the matter over. There was one thing on which I had long ago made up my mind, even before separating from Coyote Bill, and that was that Bob Davenport should not be permitted to stay in that ranch any longer than I could help. Coyote Bill was determined to have that money or drive him from the country. I gained this much from the conversation that Bill had had with some of his men, and how was I to prevent it? I was going to the States, and I was resolved that Bob should go too. I was getting sick and tired of so much pistol-drawing, I did not want to see any more of it, and I would get back among civilized men. There was where I belonged, anyway. And Tom Mason, he must go along too, and relieve the suspense which I knew his aged relative would feel at not hearing from him in so long. He did not know but Tom was dead, and a letter would go far to cheer him up. But how should I go to work upon Bob and Tom and so get them out on the water, where I could tell them everything? Well, there was another day coming, and I would see how it looked after I had slept on it.