I grabbed his hat and ran to the big buffalo wallow. Again and again I dashed the hatful of water in his face. Finally he lolled over to one side and struggled to his knees. "Which way'd she go?" He asked quietly enough, but I was suspicious. I pointed in the opposite direction. Al rubbed the blood from the side of his face. "Let her go," he said amiably, and went stumbling off toward the creek. I followed him. He turned about. "Go 'long, sonny," he said.

I waited till he took a few paces and then I sneaked after him. If Al Brown or his wife had stuck by me then I don't believe I'd be Al Jennings, the outlaw, today. It made him angry to have me trailing him. "See here, sonny, you go long hustle for yourself!"

It was a mile across the curly mesquite flats to the town of La Junta. My heels were my only horses then, but the bullets of a sheriff's posse never set me sprinting the way that prairie darkness did. I reached the town just in time to catch special apartments where the hay was clean and soft on a west-going train. It trundled into Trinidad, Colo., at 3 a. m., and I hung around the depot until morning casting about for a business opening.

My opportunity came with a Mexican kid of my own age. He carried a bootblack kit. I had a quarter. We swapped and I set out with my brushes ready to clean all the boots in the State. But the Mex swindled me. The people in Trinidad never blacked their shoes. I shouted "Shine, shine" until my throat ached and my stomach hooted with neglect. I felt like a menial.

At last I collared a patron. A giant in a white hat with a string hanging down in front and another in back, a gray shirt, and sloppy, check trousers that seemed to stick by a miracle to his hips, slouched my way.