"I reckon you have." Brunner glanced across at me, then stooped to dig a live coal out of the ashes. He held it for half a minute before packing it into the bowl of his pipe, shifting it imperceptibly in his toughened hand as he studied the backlog. When his tobacco was burning steadily, he spoke: "I can tell you the truth about young Henry--and the old man, too." I thought his tone changed. "Twenty-four years ago I came to this Indian country. For twelve years I rode with the posses as a deputy marshal and for twelve years now I've been running cattle here on Cabin Creek. I've been all over the Territory. I know every man in the Cherokee Nation that ever handled a hot iron. And I know young Henry Thomas, too. "It was in 1882 that Queen 'went bad,' and began to hold up trains on the 'Katy' and 'Frisco roads. All of that fall and winter we were after him and his gang, but we never got a sight of them. They were 'goers' all right, and when we came up to a two-weeks-old camp-fire they'd built, we thought we were lucky. "For six months after the first of the year they did nothing. We heard that Queen was in California. Then, in June, 1883, while I was at Muscogee, I got a telegram from 'Cap' White asking me to report at once to him at Red Oak. Paden Tolbert and I caught the eleven o'clock train up, dropping off at Red Oak at one in the morning. 'Cap' met us, told us he had two men ready, and that the five of us would start for Pryor Creek at once. "It was a fifteen-mile ride. We planned to pick up four men from the ranches on the way down, and get to 'Kep' Queen's camp at daylight. We had been told that there were five men in the camp, that they had been in the Pryor Creek woods for two days, and that it was their plan to hold up the flyer from the north next evening. 'Cap' White was sure of his information, and he had decided upon the men he wanted from the ranches. The two Thomases--old man Henry and young Henry--were picked out, for there was no one else in the family except a younger brother of eighteen, who has since died. 'Bud' Ryder and Jim Kelso were the other two--both good on horses and handy with a gun. "'Cap' was proud of his posse when he finally got us together. The Thomases came out and joined us like bees a-swarming. The young fellow was all up in the air with excitement, like a boy going to a circus. He was so brash that at first we couldn't keep him from riding on ahead of the rest of us; you'd think he wanted to bring in the bunch all by himself. "That was all right; brash, eager young fellows ain't always so brave when trouble begins, but they steady into good fighters. It's hard enough to get 'em that want to go after a man like 'Cap' Queen at all." Brunner told me then of the fight in the woods at daybreak. It was his summary of young Henry Thomas that interested me.