Page:Saga of Billy the Kid.djvu/118

"Billy the Kid, I hear, has picked up a new fellow for his gang," remarked Billy Matthews.

"Yes?" said Sheriff Brady.

"Name's Tom O'Folliard," Matthews went on. "Hails from Texas somewhere. Wandered into the Kid's camp over on the Ruidoso on foot, they say. How he got there nobody knows. Didn't have a gun; didn't have a horse; didn't have nothing. Just wanted to fight."

"He'll get his fill of fighting if he fools around in this country long," observed Hindman.

"They say McSween keeps his fighting men on good pay," cut in Peppin.

"If our boys run into him, his money won't do him much good," said Brady.

"Well," continued Matthews, "when the Kid saw this big, gawky, solemn-looking fellow, he thought somebody had put up a joke on him. But the cuss was so earnest, Billy decided to take a chance and rustled up an old buffalo gun and a crow-bait pony for him, and now the recruit is a regular warrior. Worships the Kid, they say, and is ready to fight a buzz-saw if the Kid bats his eye."

"The Kid thinks he's some pumpkins since the Morton and Baker murder," said Brady. "That little horse thief is working to the end of his rope. He's just about due, and it don't matter to me much how he's got, so he's got. Hanging's too good for him."

So they talked as they strolled along the dusty road.

They passed the McSween house; it was silent; Mr. and Mrs. McSween were away on a visit to John Chisum, McSween's partner, at South Spring Ranch. Captain Saturnino Baca was sitting on his front porch across the street; he waved to them in greeting and they waved back to him. As they came to the McSween store, they nodded