Arizona Nights | Page 9

alkali,
plenty of sage-brush and rattlesnakes--but mighty little water.
Why, you boys know that country down there. Between the Chiricahua
Mountains and Emigrant Pass it's maybe a three or four days' journey
for these yere bull-slingers.
Mostly they filled up their bellies and their kegs, hoping to last through,
but they sure found it drier than cork legs, and generally long before
they hit the Springs their tongues was hangin' out a foot. You see, for
all their plumb nerve in comin' so far, the most of them didn't know
sic'em. They were plumb innocent in regard to savin' their water, and
Injins, and such; and the long-haired buckskin fakes they picked up at
Santa Fe for guides wasn't much better.

That was where Texas Pete made his killing.
Texas Pete was a tough citizen from the Lone Star. He was about as
broad as he was long, and wore all sorts of big whiskers and black
eyebrows. His heart was very bad. You never COULD tell where Texas
Pete was goin' to jump next. He was a side-winder and a diamond-back
and a little black rattlesnake all rolled into one. I believe that Texas
Pete person cared about as little for killin' a man as for takin' a
drink--and he shorely drank without an effort. Peaceable citizens just
spoke soft and minded their own business; onpeaceable citizens Texas
Pete used to plant out in the sagebrush.
Now this Texas Pete happened to discover a water hole right out in the
plumb middle of the desert. He promptly annexed said water hole, digs
her out, timbers her up, and lays for emigrants.
He charged two bits a head--man or beast--and nobody got a mouthful
till he paid up in hard coin.
Think of the wads he raked in! I used to figure it up, just for the joy of
envyin' him, I reckon. An average twenty-wagon outfit, first and last,
would bring him in somewheres about fifty dollars--and besides he had
forty-rod at four bits a glass. And outfits at that time were thicker'n
spatter.
We used all to go down sometimes to watch them come in. When they
see that little canvas shack and that well, they begun to cheer up and
move fast. And when they see that sign, "Water, two bits a head," their
eyes stuck out like two raw oysters.
Then come the kicks. What a howl they did raise, shorely. But it didn't
do no manner of good. Texas Pete didn't do nothin' but sit there and
smoke, with a kind of sulky gleam in one corner of his eye. He didn't
even take the trouble to answer, but his Winchester lay across his lap.
There wasn't no humour in the situation for him.
"How much is your water for humans?" asks one emigrant.

"Can't you read that sign?" Texas Pete asks him.
"But you don't mean two bits a head for HUMANS!" yells the man.
"Why, you can get whisky for that!"
"You can read the sign, can't you?" insists Texas Pete.
"I can read it all right?" says the man, tryin' a new deal, "but they tell
me not to believe more'n half I read."
But that don't go; and Mr. Emigrant shells out with the rest.
I didn't blame them for raisin' their howl. Why, at that time the regular
water holes was chargin' five cents a head from the government
freighters, and the motto was always "Hold up Uncle Sam," at that.
Once in a while some outfit would get mad and go chargin' off dry; but
it was a long, long way to the Springs, and mighty hot and dusty. Texas
Pete and his one lonesome water hole shorely did a big business.
Late one afternoon me and Gentleman Tim was joggin' along above
Texas Pete's place. It was a tur'ble hot day--you had to prime yourself
to spit--and we was just gettin' back from drivin' some beef up to the
troops at Fort Huachuca. We was due to cross the Emigrant Trail--she's
wore in tur'ble deep--you can see the ruts to-day. When we topped the
rise we see a little old outfit just makin' out to drag along.
It was one little schooner all by herself, drug along by two poor old
cavallos that couldn't have pulled my hat off. Their tongues was out,
and every once in a while they'd stick in a chuck-hole. Then a man
would get down and put his shoulder to the wheel, and everybody'd
take a heave, and up they'd come, all a-trembling and weak.
Tim and I rode down just to take a look at the curiosity.
A thin-lookin' man was drivin', all humped up.
"Hullo, stranger," says I, "ain't you 'fraid of Injins?"
"Yes," says he.

"Then why are you travellin' through an Injin