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his friends later who also searched for it without success. As years went by Billy the Kid's six-shooter hidden in the forks of the juniper tree in Capitan Gap became a tradition like Captain Kidd's buried treasure. It is still talked about in that country, and many people have hunted for it; but if it was ever found, the finder kept the secret—and the gun—to himself.

The Kid arrived early in the morning at the goat ranch of José Cordoba. Greatly astonished was Cordoba to see him here at his door.

"I thought," he said, "they were getting ready to hang you in Lincoln."

"Maybe they are," replied Billy, "but I won't be there."

"What is that rattling sound I hear when you walk?"

"My leg irons. Can you take them off?"

"Facilmente, amigo. Come with me."

Cordoba maintained a wayside smithy where he did odd jobs of tinkering and horseshoeing for the neighbourhood. He conducted the Kid into the blacksmith shop where, with file and pincers, Benito Rodriguez. Cordoba's helper, soon freed the Kid's ankles of their steel gyves.

"Now," said the Kid, standing up and stamping his unencumbered feet, "I am myself again. I will never wear any such things on my legs again unless they put them on me dead."

Cordoba invited him to get some sleep on his bed but the Kid declined.

"Pat Garrett and his men may come riding along any minute," he said. "If they do," he added, "I'll get Garrett the first one. I won't care much what happens to me then. I'll get a little sleep in the woods somewhere on the road to Las Tablas."