“You can’t see them now,” said Burl Van Vedder, our outlook; “but wait a few minutes and they’ll come up on higher ground. Here, here, you are looking a mile too far to the right—they’re not following the cattle, but the wagon’s trail. Keep your eyes to the left of that shale outcropping, and on a line with that lone tree on the Saw Log. Hold your horses a minute; I’ve been watching them for half an hour before I called you; be patient, and they’ll rise like a trout. There! there comes one on a gray horse. See those two others just behind him. Now, there come the others—six all told.” Sure enough, there came the sleuths of deputy sheriffs, trailing up our wagon. They were not over three miles away, and after patiently waiting nearly an hour, we rode to the brink of the slope, and I ordered one of the boys to fire his pistol to attract their attention. On hearing the report, they halted, and taking off my hat I waved them forward. Feeling that we were on safe territory, I was determined to get in the first bluff, and as they rode up, I saluted the leader and said: “Good-morning, Mr. Sheriff. What are you fooling along on our wagon track for, when you could have trailed the herd in a long lope? Here we’ve wasted a whole hour waiting for you to come up, just because the sheriff’s office of Ford County employs as deputies ‘nesters’ instead of plainsmen. But now since you are here, let us proceed to business, or would you like to breakfast first? Our wagon is just over the other slope, and you-all look pale around the gills this morning after your long ride and sleepless night. Which shall it be, business or breakfast?” Haughtily ignoring my irony, the leader of the posse drew from his pocket several papers, and first clearing his throat, said in an imperious tone, “I have a warrant here for the arrest of Tom Quirk, alias McIndoo, and a distress warrant for a herd of ‘Open A’—” “Old sport, you’re in the right church, but the wrong pew,” I interrupted. “This may be the state of Kansas, but at present we are outside the bailiwick of Ford County, and those papers of yours are useless. Let me take those warrants and I’ll indorse them for you, so as to dazzle your superiors on their return without the man or property. I was deputized once by a constable in Texas to assist in recovering some cattle, but just like the present case they got out of our jurisdiction before we overtook them. The constable was a lofty, arrogant fellow like yourself, but had sense enough to keep within his rights. But when it came to indorsing the warrant for return, we were all up a stump, and rode twenty miles out of our way so as to pass Squire Little’s ranch and get his advice on the matter. The squire had been a justice in Tennessee before coming to our state, and knew just what to say. Now let me take those papers, and I’ll indorse them ‘Non est inventus,’ which is Latin for SCOOTED, BY GOSH! Ain’t you going to let me have them?”