I think it was in the fall of '74 that Harry White brought the big load of hides to Jack. Both were much pleased at the bargain they made. Harry gave glowing accounts of a new customer--a ranchman from Chicago, who had taken up an abandoned homestead. He had purchased many cattle from his cousin, Gil Mead, and hoped to rival him in the number and quality of his herd. Jack packed the hides away to keep till December, when we expected the dealer. One afternoon, not long after this, Gil Mead rode up to the house, looking very agreeable and pleasant. A couple of strangers, also ranchmen, were with him. They wanted to look at the hides, one of the men being a trader, Gil said. Jack was in Denver, so Yik Kee and I went to the barn with them. They looked the hides over carefully, and conversed in low tones, Gil with a suppressed oath. Finally they thanked us courteously and took their leave. "Hump; no goodee," said Yik Kee, but he wouldn't say any more. At five that evening, when we were at supper, a crowd of twenty-five or thirty men rode up on horseback. Jack came out and met them, inviting them in to take supper, in his generous, hospitable way. They wanted him to go to Denver with them, there was to be a meeting there of importance to ranchmen. The meeting would be at eight. They had brought with them an extra horse for Jack. Mary looked around for Yik Kee to help her, but he had mysteriously disappeared. I faintly remembered seeing his white, horrified face peering around the barn at the horses. I noted the visitors ate little--the food seemed to choke them. Some of them watched Mary and the baby in a queer sort of way. When Jack, as was his custom, kissed his wife and babies good-by, one of the visitors, an oldish man, coughed huskily, and said: "Blest if I kin stan' this." They all rode off, Jack the merriest of all, waving his hat till he was out of sight. When we were clearing up the unusual quantity of dishes, Yik Kee appeared at the end window and beckoned me. I followed him out. Ted was with him. Behind the barn were the three horses saddled. Shep was with them, released from confinement, where he had been secured from following his master. "Foller 'em," said Ted in an excited whisper. "Yik's afraid they're up to something." "What is it, Yik?" I said, sternly. "No fooling now." For answer he twisted his long pig-tail around his neck, tying it under his left ear in a significant manner. "Hump, he hangee; stealee cow." "Oh, Mary," I sobbed, remembering Gil Mead's visit, and his strange actions, and dimly seeing what Yik Kee meant, "I must tell Mary," I said, wildly. "Hump, no," said Yik Kee. "Yellee sick," and he closed his eyes in a die-away sort of manner. "Go now--too latee." We mounted.