Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/686

546 tirely, listening to their talk, and more than once heard the big rough- looking Mexican boast of a pair of Yankee ears that he would take from my head.

Their supper being ready, they sat down to eat, but did not invite me to sup with them. They all three ate out of the same frying pan and poured their coffee out in tin cups. Two of them had their backs turned toward me, while the other one sat on the opposite side of the frying pan that they were eating out of and facing me, but they were paying but little attention to me. Black Bess was feeding close by and on the opposite side of them from where I lay. Now I made up my mind that I would make a desperate effort to extricate myself from this trap, for to stay there I knew meant death and I would rather take my chances with those three than with the entire gang. They were all sitting flat on the ground, each had a pistol on him and their guns all lay within a few feet of them. My only show for escape was to kill two of them at the first shot and then I would have an equal show with the other one, but now was the particular part of the work. Just one false move and the jig was up with me, but it was getting time that I should be at work for the other seven were likely to be there at any moment. I carefully reached around under my coat tail and got hold of both of my pistols, and just as I did so, as good luck would have it, Black Bess shook herself very hard and caused them to turn their eyes toward her, and it could not have happened in a better time. I was on my knees in an instant, and leveling a pistol at each of the two with their backs towards me, I fired, and being almost near enough to have touched either of them