The lieutenant said he wouldn't drive the way I wanted him to and they would have breakfast before they started. I told him "All right, stay and have your breakfast, I don't object, but then go back to Fort Lyon." I did not need an escort unless they complied with my orders. I had orders from my headquarters and they were supposed to be at "my service" as escort of the mail and express. Well, Major Pendelton was in a "pickle"--it was a predicament he did not know how to get out of. He wanted to get through as soon as possible and knew that if he went back with the Lieutenant, he would be delayed. He thought he had too much money to be left with me without the escort. He remembered Major Anthony's words to him before we left the fort. Major Anthony had told him, "you are safe in Billy's coach, he never has trouble with Indians." However, while Pendelton pondered, Joe Cummins thought he would fix matters with the Lieutenant and took him to one side and told him that he was under the orders of the conductor of the Government Mail and Express, that I was in the service of the United States Mail and that my orders would supercede any orders about traveling. Mr. Cummings told him that I would make my 50 and 60 miles a day and he would have to make his mules travel that fast, or go back. "If you leave," Joe says, "Major Anthony will report you to headquarters at Leavenworth." The Lieutenant finally decided to go, much to the relief of Major Pendelton. After we had gotten straightened out and on the road' once more, Joe Cummins thought that the fun had tamed down too much, so he winked at me, then asked me, "Billy, where do those Texas rangers hold out along this road, do ye know?" "Yes," I told him, "they generally hold out right across the river in the hills, which afford them such good hiding places where they can ambush without being discovered." At this, Major Pendelton suddenly woke up, "what's that, you fellers are talking about?" Joe, casually remarked that they were discussing that band of robbers that lived on the route across the river from us. He kept on until Major Pendelton was feeling "blue." When we camped for breakfast--dinner as the Lieutenant called it. Cummings told the paymaster many a bloody tale of the lawlessness of that trail, and ended by telling him and his clerk that while I was getting breakfast ready that they had better practice up on their marksmanship. The clerk had a four-barreled little short pistol. The first time he shot at the mark he struck the ground about four feet from it. The four barrels all exploded at once. The paymaster jumped about six feet in the air, thinking that we were surely attacked from the rear. Cummings was tickled to death. He handed the paymaster his revolver, which was a 12-inch Colts, and told him to shoot toward the board. The paymaster fired and missed the mark. "Well," Cummings said, "Billy, it's up to you and me, if we are held up by the Texas rangers on this trip." "But,"