“Why, this is from Dan McMasters!” said he. “Five days ago he was in Caldwell. Says he has gone on now to Wichita,” explaining to McCoyne and the others. “He may be at Aberlene by the time we get there.” “Say, you, here!” he remarked to the chief. “We’ll give you one wohaw. You set down and wait a while. We’ll ride on up to the wohaws.” “All right,” said the Osage partisan in good humor. “Him say you give wohaw. We bring you paper.” They disposed themselves on the grass, their bows unstrung. “You seem to be all the time hearing from this man McMasters,” said McCoyne. “How come he’s on ahead of you so far?” “That’s a long story,” said Jim Nabours. “He did ride with us for a while.” “I knew that man over at Baxter and on the Missouri border,” ruminated the man from Abilene. “Quiet sort of fellow—mysterious—never did say much. I was figuring on a market over there for Texas cattle. But I learned about a gang of raiders in there that had been cutting every herd that came up from Texas bound for Missouri or Iowa or Illinois. Those border ruffians killed probably a dozen men altogether. They tied up and whipped maybe a dozen more. They terrorized every trail outfit that came through there, and the natural result was that they kept off St. Louis from ever becoming a real cow town. Nothing could get through. A little thing sometimes makes a heap of difference later on in big things. “The leader of that gang was a ruffian by name of Rudabaugh,” he added. “The Missourians finally run him south.” “Yes,” said Nabours quietly. “The Texans have finally run him north again.” “And this man McMasters was after him?” McCoyne turned suddenly. “He might be. He is now. He’s been keeping ahead of us, and that’s the reason.” He now explained at length the machinations of the trail pirates and the untimely end of them in the night battle on the Washita. “He mostly plays a lone hand,” Nabours concluded. “He’s an officer in the Rangers. That’s putting law into Texas—the Rangers.” “Well, we’ve only got one man to put law into Abilene. I’m going to hire Wild Bill Hickok for our town marshal. Wild Bill has got these bad people buffaloed. Counting in his work as a Union sharpshooter, under Curtis, in the Missouri country, he’d have to have a long gun stock to carry all his notches. It’s sure he’s killed somewhere between seventy-five and a hundred men. In 1860, when he was taking care of the stage stock over in east of Abilene, he was jumped by McCandless and his gang—ten men there were in all. You’ve heard of that fight? They were going to run off the stage stock for the Confederate Army. They tackled Bill in his shack, ten of them, and he was alone. He killed nine out of the ten by himself. Not so bad, eh? I don’t know as I ever knew Bill to serve a warrant or make an arrest. But I’ll bet one thing—if we get him for town marshal, Abilene will be first in graveyards, the same as she is first in everything else.”