Half a day served to see everything in Santa Fe worth looking at, but
Mr. Cullen decided to spend there the time they had to wait for his
other son to join the party. To pass the hours, I hunted up some
ponies, and we spent three days in long rides up the old Santa Fe
trail and to the outlying mountains. Only one incident was other than
pleasant, and that was my fault. As we were riding back to our cars
on the second afternoon, we had to cross the branch road-bed, where a
gang happened to be at work tamping the ties.
"Since you're interested in road agents, Miss Cullen," I said, "you
may like to see one. That fellow standing in the ditch is Jack Drute,
who was concerned in the D.& R.G. hold-up three years ago."
Miss Cullen looked where I pointed, and seeing a man with a gun, gave
a startled jump, and pulled up her pony, evidently supposing that
we were about to be attacked. "Sha'n't we run?" she began, but then
checked herself, as she took in the facts of the drab clothes of the
gang and the two armed men in uniform. "They are convicts?" she asked,
and when I nodded, she said, "Poor things!" After a pause, she asked,
"How long is he in prison for?"
"Twenty years," I told her."
"How harsh that seems!" she said. "How cruel we are to people for a
few moments' wrong-doing, which the circumstances may almost have
justified!" She checked her pony as we came opposite Drute, and said,
"Can you use money?"
"Can I, lyedy?" said the fellow, leering in an attempt to look
amiable.
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