"Old Crit says they never was a man sent up in this county yet for stealin' cattle," ventured Pecos, lamely.
"Sure not," assented Angevine Thorne, "but they's been a whole lot of 'em killed for it! I don't suppose he mentioned that. Have you heard about this Tewkesbury-Graham war that's goin' on up in Pleasant Valley? That all started over rustlin' cattle, and they's over sixty men killed already and everybody hidin' out like thieves. A couple of Crit's bad punchers came down through there from the Hash-knife and they said it was too crude for them—everybody fightin' from ambush and killin' men, women, and children. I tell you, it's got the country stirred up turrible—that's how come Boone Morgan was elected sheriff. The people down in Geronimo figured out if they didn't stop this stealin' and rustlin' and alterin' brands pretty soon, Old Crit and Upton would lock horns—or some of these other cowmen up here in the mountains—and the county would go bankrupt like Tonto is, with sheriff's fees and murder trials. No, sir, they ain't been enough law up here on the Verde to intimidate a jackrabbit so far—it's all down there in Geronimo, where they give me that life sentence for conspicuous drunkenness—but you want to keep your ear to the ground, boy, because you're goin' to hear something drap!"
"What d'ye think's goin' to happen, Babe?" asked the cowboy, uneasily. "Old Crit can't be scared very bad—he's laid off all his punchers."
"Huh! you don't know Crit as well as I do," commented Babe. "Don't you know those punchers would've quit anyhow, as soon as they got their pay? He does that every year —lays 'em off and then goes down to Geronimo about the time they're broke, and half of 'em in jail, mebby, and bails 'em out. He'll have four or five of 'em around here all summer, workin' for nothin' until the fall round-up comes off. I tell you, that man'll skin a flea anytime for the hide and taller. You want to keep out of debt to him or he'll make you into a Mexican peon, like Joe Garcia over here. Joe's been his corral boss and teamster for four years now and I guess they's a hundred dollars against him on the books, right now. Will drink a little whiskey once in a while, you know, like all the rest of us, and the Señora keeps sendin' over for sugar and coffee and grub, and somehow or other, Joe is always payin' for a dead horse. Wouldn't be a Mexican, though," observed Babe, philosophically, "if he wasn't in debt to the store. A Mexican ain't happy until he's in the hole a hundred or so—then he can lay back and sojer on his job and the boss is afraid to fire 'im. There's no use of his havin' anything, anyhow—his relatives would eat 'im out of house and home in a minute. There was a Mexican down the river here won the grand prize in a lottery and his relatives come overland from as far as Sonora to help him spend the money. Inside of a month he was drivin' a wood-wagon again in order to git up a little grub. He was a big man while it lasted—open house day and night, fiestas and bailes and a string band to accompany him wherever he went—but when it was all over old Juan couldn't buy a pint of whiskey on credit if he was snake-bit. They're a great people, for sure."
"That's right," assented Pecos, absently, "but say, I reckon I'll be goin'." The social qualities of the Spanish-Americans did not interest him just then—he was thinking about Boone Morgan. "Gimme a dollar's worth of smoking tobacco and a box of forty-fives and I'll hit the road."
"There's one thing more you forgot," suggested Angevine Thorne, as he wrapped up the purchases.
"What—Marcelina?" ventured Pecos, faintly.
"Naw—your mail!" cried Angy, scornfully, and dipping down into a cracker box he brought out a paper on the yellow wrapper of which was printed "Pecos Dalhart, Verde Crossing, Ariz."
"I never subscribed for no paper!" protested Pecos, turning it over suspiciously. "Here—I don't want it."
"Ump-umm," grunted Angy, smiling mysteriously, "take it along. All the boys git one. You can read it out in camp. Well, if you're goin' to be bull-headed about it I'll tell you. Crit subscribed for it for every man in Verde—only cost two-bits a year. Got to build up this mail route somehow, you know. It's called the Voice of Reason and it's against the capitalistic classes."
"The which?" inquired Pecos, patiently.
"Aw, against rich fellers—these sharks like Old Crit that's crushin' the life outer the common people. That's the paper I was showin' you—where they was advertisin' diamonds for a dollar forty-eight a piece."
"Oh," said Pecos, thrusting it into his chaps, "why didn't you say so before? Sure, I'll read it!"
CHAPTER VI
"THE VOICE OF REASON"
The fierce heat of summer fell suddenly upon Lost Dog Cañon and all the Verde country—the prolonged heat which hatches flies by the million and puts an end to ear-marking and branding. Until the cool weather of October laid them and made it possible to heal a wound there was nothing for Pecos to do but doctor a few sore ears and read the Voice of Reason. Although he had spent most of his life in the saddle the school-teacher back on the Pecos had managed to corral him long enough to beat the three R's into him and, being still young, he had not yet had time to forget them. Only twenty summers had passed over his head, so far, and he was a man only in stature and the hard experience of his craft. He was a good Texan—born a Democrat and taught to love whiskey and hate Mexicans—but so far his mind was guiltless of social theory. That there was something in the world that kept a poor man down he knew, vaguely; but never, until the Voice of Reason brought it to his attention, had he heard of the conspiracy of wealth or the crime of government. Not until, sprawling at the door of his cave, he mumbled over the full-mouthed invective of that periodical had he realized what a poor, puny creature a wage-slave really was, and when he read of the legalized robbery which went on under the name of law his young blood boiled in revolt. The suppression of strikes by Pinkertons, the calling out of the State Militia to shoot down citizens, the blacklisting of miners, and the general oppression of workingmen was all far away and academic to him—the thing that gripped and held him was an article on the fee system, under which officers of the law arrest all transient citizens who are unfortunate enough to be poor, and judges condemn them in order to gain a fee.
"Think, Slave, Think!" it began. "You may be the next innocent man to be thrown into some vile and vermin-infested county-jail to swell the income of the bloated minions who fatten upon the misery of the poor!"
Pecos had no difficulty in thinking. Like many another man of wandering habits he had already tasted the bitterness of "ten dollars or ten days." The hyenas of the law had gathered him in while he was innocently walking down the railroad track and a low-browed justice of the peace without asking any useless questions had sentenced him to jail for vagrancy. Ten days of brooding and hard fare had not sweetened his disposition any and he had stepped free with the firm determination to wreak a notable revenge, but as the sheriff thoughtfully kept his six-shooter Pecos had been compelled to postpone that exposition of popular justice. Nevertheless the details of his wrongs were still fresh in his mind, and when he learned from the Voice of Reason that the constable and judge had made him all that trouble for an aggregate fee of six dollars Pecos was ready to oppose all law, in whatsoever form it might appear, with summary violence. And as for the capitalistic classes—well, Pecos determined to collect his last month's pay from Old Crit if he had to take it out of his hide.
When next he rode into Verde Crossing the hang-dog look which had possessed Pecos Dalhart since he turned rustler was displaced by a purposeful frown. He rolled truculently in the saddle as he came down