The same raconteur told me this other tale, which he also swore was true. He and a partner once found a hot spring and mud-bath of wonderful curative properties. A New Yorker, who was suffering from some complication of diseases, heard of it, and offered that, if they would take him out and it would cure him, he would not only pay them for their trouble, but buy their rights in the spring and bath as well. The money was payable on their return if he was cured, but said the narrator, “I never got the money.” On being pressed, he told the following tale: “We took him out with ten pack-mules carrying fancy canned goods and other truck. When we arrived and pitched our camp, it was arranged that we should bury him in the mud every morning up to his neck and dig him out again every night. Well, after a week he was so much better that one night he opened up a bottle of champagne for a celebration. The next morning, after we had buried him, we were feeling pretty thirsty from the celebration, so my partner and I decided to sample some more of the fizz. One bottle led to another, so that by night we were too drunk to remember to dig him out. In the morning, when we came to life again, we went to see how he was getting along, and we found that the blamed coyotes had eaten his head off, so we lost our money.” The Pat Garrett above mentioned got such a reputation as a killer of bad-men that they paid him $10,000 to come up to New Mexico to be sheriff of a county there where the bad-man flourished. Later, he was with Roosevelt’s rough-riders in the Spanish American War, and, when Teddy was elected president, he appointed Pat to be the head of the Customs Department in El Paso, Texas. Some time ago he got into a private row with some farmer over irrigation rights, and the farmer killed him. “How are the mighty fallen!” CHAPTER XV Coyotes—Wild turkeys—Lynching and Jury Trial in Texas—Pistol-shooting—Negro vitality. I was telling a coyote story for which I cannot vouch, but I myself had an experience with a coyote one night when I was on a fishing trip on the Nueces River.