"That night I mentions the matter to Ogden. "'They're drawing the tendrils of the octopus
around Black Bill,' says I. And then I told him about the deputy sheriff, and how I'd
described him to the deputy, and what the deputy said about the matter.
"'Oh, well,' says Ogden, 'let's don't borrow any of Black Bill's troubles. We've a few of
our own. Get the Bourbon out of the cupboard and we'll drink to his health--unless,' says
he, with his little cackling laugh, 'you're prejudiced against train-robbers.'
"'I'll drink,' says I, 'to any man who's a friend to a friend. And I believe that Black Bill,' I
goes on, 'would be that. So here's to Black Bill, and may he have good luck.'
"And both of us drank.
"About two weeks later comes shearing-time. The sheep had to be driven up to the
ranch, and a lot of frowzy-headed Mexicans would snip the fur off of them with back-
action scissors. So the afternoon before the barbers were to come I hustled my
underdone muttons over the hill, across the dell, down by the winding brook, and up to
the ranch-house, where I penned 'em in a corral and bade 'em my nightly adieus.
"I went from there to the ranch-house. I find H. Ogden, Esquire, lying asleep on his little
cot bed. I guess he had been overcome by anti-insomnia or diswakefulness or some of
the diseases peculiar to the sheep business. His mouth and vest were open, and he
breathed like a second-hand bicycle pump. I looked at him and gave vent to just a few
musings. 'Imperial Caesar,' says I, 'asleep in such a way, might shut his mouth and keep
the wind away.'
A man asleep is certainly a sight to make angels weep. What good is all his brain,
muscle, backing, nerve, influence, and family connections? He's at the mercy of his
enemies, and more so of his friends. And he's about as beautiful as a cab-horse leaning
against the Metropolitan Opera House at 12.30 A.M. dreaming of the plains of Arabia.
Now, a woman asleep you regard as different. No matter how she looks, you know it's
better for all hands for her to be that way.
"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.