One can hear noises a long way in the open spaces, and we had left the hills and were now in a great flat. On the quiet air came the sound of many hoofs, drumming, racing down on us. A quick scramble back to the cars and the rifles. There was no crossing that wash without a guide. We swung the cars broadside of the road, and turned off the lights. Of course, we thought the boy had returned, and they were now about to rescue their captured neighbor. Naturally they would seek us at the crossing. I threw the rifle lever and a shell into the breech, and leaned across the engine. We would have the car between us. The hoofs pounded nearer, a dozen or more ponies. “Uptohulloa!” roared the big stockman, a word he could fire like a broadside. They reined in, a group of shadowy horsemen. “Where you going?” was pieced out from our smattering of Navajo. Then one of them rode forward, and we recognized a man from a camp below the wash. “Going home,” he said, simply. We had no fault to find with this, and said so. Their ponies slowly and gingerly began crossing the bog, following a devious trail. Another thrill shattered. It is a land where nothing ever happens until, through misfortune or misunderstanding, the wholly unexpected occurs. When our guide came up, we too crossed, and three hours later we reached the Holbrook jail. The deputy sheriff in charge said that all hotels were filled, and we were too tired to seek lodging elsewhere. What would do for the prisoners would be gratefully accepted by the posse. So we all slept that night behind the bars. Very early I found a physician to examine and dress the wounds of our battered witness, and I telegraphed the Leupp Indian Agent for instructions as to the one prisoner from his Bidahoche province. He replied that he would come for the man. We went on to court with the liquor cases. [3] There One-eyed Dan and his partner pleaded guilty, and were sentenced to a rest of several months in jail; whence, having recuperated and made new plans, they returned to the back-country game with renewed spirits. My colleague of the Leupp Agency managed things differently. The complainant and prisoner were taken to his headquarters, where he heard the case as Nahtahni, and sentenced the guilty to break rock for a considerable period. However, this was not nearly so impressive to the Indian as action in a foreign court, removed from the Indian country; but it is a pity that the circumstance of capture and the possibility of crime weigh so little when the Indian culprit is arraigned before those not conversant with his daily life. XXIV HELD FOR RANSOM It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation, To puff and look important and to say: “Though we know we should defeat you, We have not the time to meet you. We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”