Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/110

 brilliant about the bauble offered to him that he closed the bargain and paid over the sum demanded by the stranger, who took his departure and was seen no more. Four or five years afterward Crandall was making some purchases in a jewellery store in San Francisco, when the owner, happening to see the diamond he was wearing, inquired whether he would be willing to sell it, and offered fifteen hundred dollars cash for the gem which had been so lightly regarded. Nothing further was ever learned of its early ownership, and it is likely enough that its seizure was only one incident among scores that might be related of the French occupation—not seizures by the foreigners altogether, but those made also by the bandits with whom the western side of the republic swarmed for a time.

There was one poor wretch who could always be seen about the tables; he never played, never talked to any one, and seemed to take no particular interest in anything or anybody. What his name was no one knew or cared; all treated him kindly, and anything he wished for was supplied by the charity or the generosity of the frequenters of the gaming-tables. He was a trifle "off," but perfectly harmless; he had lost all the brain he ever had through fright in an Apache ambuscade, and had never recovered his right mind. The party to which he belonged had been attacked not far from Davidson's Springs, but he was one of those who had escaped, or at least he thought he had until he heard the "swish" and felt the pull of the noose of a lariat which a young Apache hiding behind a sage-brush had dexterously thrown across his shoulders. The Mexican drew his ever-ready knife, slashed the raw-hide rope in two, and away he flew on the road to Tucson, never ceasing to spur his mule until both of them arrived, trembling, covered with dust and lather, and scared out of their wits, and half-dead, within sight of the green cottonwoods on the banks of the Santa Cruz.

Then one was always sure to meet men like old Jack Dunn, who had wandered about in all parts of the world, and has since done such excellent work as a scout against the Chiricahua Apaches. I think that Jack is living yet, but am not certain. If he is, it will pay some enterprising journalist to hunt him up and get a few of his stories out of him; they'll make the best kind of reading for people who care to hear of the wildest days on the wildest of frontiers. And there were others—men who have passed away,