Page:Saga of Billy the Kid.djvu/223

Barney Mason, the poker game continued while O'Folliard lay dead on his blanket in the corner.

The four outlaws who had been with O'Folliard when he was shot were Billy Wilson, Tom Pickett, Dave Rudabaugh, and Charlie Bowdre. Billy the Kid had separated from them a few miles from town for some prudent reason of his own and was riding alone along the cottonwood avenue when he heard the firing. He swung about on the back trail and rejoined his companions in their mad dash to escape which ended at Wilcox's ranch ten miles north of Fort Sumner. Here the outlaws passed the night in warm beds, and after breakfast next day struck northward, disappearing like gray ghosts in a blinding blizzard. Dave Rudabaugh's horse had been shot by Garrett's men and fell over dead a mile from town, where it subsequently was found, Rudabaugh mounting behind Wilson to continue his flight.

It would have been useless for Garrett to take up the pursuit of the outlaws next morning. Before dawn, a driving snowstorm had set in and extinguished the trail as one blows out a candle. The posse remained in Fort Sumner and buried O'Folliard in the little cemetery east of town. It was a strange little funeral, without bead or book or ceremony, fit period to the futile, wild career of the youth who had followed blindly and faithfully the fortunes of Billy the Kid. Only a handful of men stood about the grave as the rough pine box containing all that was left of Tom O'Folliard was lowered into the earth; among them, Pat Garrett, who had killed him, tall and grim in the slithering, wind-blown snow.

When the storm ceased after nightfall, Pecos Valley lay buried a foot deep in feathery whiteness; the skies cleared as if the clouds had been swept away by a broom; a wind-