I have never had any handcuffs on since but I sure suffered agony that day. They had to drive about 15 miles to the railroad to get a train to take me back home and I begged the sheriff to take the handcuffs off, as the thoughts of them scared me to death. The sheriff was a kindly man and I know he felt sorry for me and was going to take them off—but I heard the driver tell him, “That kid is going to give you the slip if you turn him loose and we never will catch him again, and he sure can run like hell.” It was a livery stable team and driver that the sheriff had hired to go after me, and I guess they didn’t want to waste anymore time chasing me. But the sheriff did take the cuffs off when we got to town and took me to dinner and treated me fine, but told me if I tried to run away he would put me in jail. That cooked me ... I stayed close to him all day so he wouldn’t think I was trying to get away. When I landed back home I had quite a score to settle with my folks for running away. They kept me under pretty close guard for awhile but finally put me back to herding cattle—but they did not give me a horse to ride anymore. I had to walk, as my stepfather knew there was less chance of me running away if I had to walk. My mother tried to make peace between the old man and myself but never made much headway, as we both hated each other. He was a comical-looking little Irishman—I was quite a mimic and was always making fun of him behind his back to the other kids. One day he caught me at it and it sure made him mad and he gave me a good beating, which didn’t help my feelings towards him. So I used to job him every chance I got and I guess I made life about as miserable for him as he did for me. CHAPTER II BLACK HILLS OF SOUTH DAKOTA (1878 to 1885) In 1879 my folks came across the plains from Fort Pierre to the Black Hills and the first town we came to, of any size, was Scooptown and from there to Deadwood was mostly mountains and several toll gates. It cost a dollar to go through those places—that meant the people that kept those gates kept the road repaired so it would be passable—but those roads were sure tough. I remember when we drove our team up the street of Deadwood the mud was about two feet deep and we could hardly get through, as Deadwood was one street about a mile long in a deep canyon. It was laid out in three sections: first Elizabeth Town, Chinatown and then Deadwood proper. We camped in Elizabeth Town for several weeks—lived in a tent.