There's a tur'ble lot of water running loose here, but I've seen the time and place where even what is in that drip would be worth a gold mine. That was in the emigrant days. They used to come over south of here, through what they called Emigrant Pass, on their way to Californy. I was a kid then, about eighteen year old, and what I didn't know about Injins and Agency cattle wasn't a patch of alkali. I had a kid outfit of h'ar bridle, lots of silver and such, and I used to ride over and be the handsome boy before such outfits as happened along.
They were queer people, most of 'em from Missoury and such-like southern seaports, and they were tur'ble sick of travel by the time they come in sight of Emigrant Pass. Up to Santa Fe they mostly hiked along any old way, but once there they herded up together in bunches of twenty wagons or so, 'count of our old friends, Geronimo and Loco. A good many of 'em had horned cattle to their wagons, and they crawled along about two miles an hour, hotter'n hell with the blower on, nothin' to look at but a mountain a week way, chuck full of alkali, plenty of sage-brush and rattlesnakes - but mighty little water.
Why, you boys know that country down there. Between the Chiricahua Mountains and Emigrant Pass it's maybe a three or four days' journey for these yere bull-slingers.
Mostly they filled up their bellies and their kegs, hoping to last through, but they sure found it drier than cork legs, and generally long before they hit the Springs their tongues was hangin' out a foot. You see, for all their plumb nerve in comin' so far, the most of them didn't know sic'em. They were plumb innocent in regard to savin' their water, and Injins, and such; and the long-haired buckskin fakes they picked up at Santa Fe for guides wasn't much better.
That was where Texas Pete made his killing.
Texas Pete was a tough citizen from the Lone Star. He was about as broad as he was long, and wore all sorts of big whiskers and black eyebrows. His heart was very bad. You never COULD tell where Texas Pete was goin' to jump next. He was a side-winder and a diamond-back and a little black rattlesnake all rolled into one. I believe that Texas Pete person cared about as little for killin' a man as for takin' a drink - and he shorely drank without an effort. Peaceable citizens just spoke soft and minded their own business; onpeaceable citizens Texas Pete used to plant out in the sagebrush.
Now this Texas Pete happened to discover a water hole right out in the plumb middle of the desert. He promptly annexed said water hole, digs her out, timbers her up, and lays for emigrants.
He charged two bits a head - man or beast - and nobody got a mouthful till he paid up in hard coin.
Think of the wads he raked in! I used to figure it up, just for the joy of envyin' him, I reckon. An average twenty-wagon outfit, first and last, would bring him in somewheres about fifty dollars - and besides he had forty-rod at four bits a glass. And outfits at that time were thicker'n spatter.
We used all to go down sometimes to watch them come in. When they see that little canvas shack and that well, they begun to cheer up and move fast. And when they see that sign, "Water, two bits a head," their eyes stuck out like two raw oysters.
Then come the kicks. What a howl they did raise, shorely. But it didn't do no manner of good. Texas Pete didn't do nothin' but sit there and smoke, with a kind of sulky gleam in one corner of his eye. He didn't even take the trouble to answer, but his Winchester lay across his lap. There wasn't no humour in the situation for him.
"How much is your water for humans?" asks one emigrant.
"Can't you read that sign?" Texas Pete asks him.
"But you don't mean two bits a head for HUMANS!" yells the man. "Why, you can get whisky for that!"
"You can read the sign, can't you?" insists Texas Pete.
"I can read it all right?" says the man, tryin' a new deal, "but they tell me not to believe more'n half I read."
But that don't go; and Mr. Emigrant shells out with the rest.
I didn't blame them for raisin' their howl. Why, at that time the regular water holes was chargin' five cents a head from the government freighters, and the motto was always "Hold up Uncle Sam," at that. Once in a while some outfit would get mad and go chargin' off dry; but it was a long, long way to the Springs, and mighty hot and dusty. Texas Pete and his one lonesome water hole shorely did a big business.
Late one afternoon me and Gentleman Tim was joggin' along above Texas Pete's place. It was a tur'ble hot day - you had to prime yourself to spit - and we was just gettin' back from drivin' some beef up to the troops at Fort Huachuca. We was due to cross the Emigrant Trail - she's wore in tur'ble deep - you can see the ruts to-day. When we topped the rise we see a little old outfit just makin' out to drag along.
It was one little schooner all by herself, drug along by two poor old cavallos that couldn't have pulled my hat off. Their tongues was out, and every once in a while they'd stick in a chuck-hole. Then a man would get down and put his shoulder to the wheel, and everybody'd take a heave, and up they'd come, all a-trembling and weak.
Tim and I rode down just to take a look at the curiosity.
A thin-lookin' man was drivin', all humped up.
"Hullo, stranger," says I, "ain't you 'fraid of Injins?"
"Yes," says he.
"Then why are you travellin' through an Injin country all alone?"
"Couldn't keep up," says he. "Can I get water here?"
"I reckon," I answers.
He drove up to the water trough there at Texas Pete's, me and Gentleman Tim followin' along because our trail led that way. But he hadn't more'n stopped before Texas Pete was out.
"Cost you four bits to water them hosses," says he.
The man looked up kind of bewildered.
"I'm sorry," says he, "I ain't got no four bits. I got my roll lifted off'n me."
"No water, then," growls Texas Pete back at him.
The man looked about him helpless.
"How far is it to the next water?" he asks me. "Twenty mile," I tells him.
"My God!" he says, to himself-like.
Then he shrugged his shoulders very tired.
"All right. It's gettin' the cool of the evenin'; we'll make it." He turns into the inside of that old schooner.
"Gi' me the cup, Sue."
A white-faced woman who looked mighty good to us alkalis opened the flaps and gave out a tin cup, which the man pointed out to fill.
"How many of you is they?" asks Texas Pete.
"Three," replies the man, wondering.
"Well, six bits, then," says Texas Pete, "cash down."
At that the man straightens up a little.
"I ain't askin' for no water for my stock," says he, "but my wife and baby has been out in this sun all day without a drop of water. Our cask slipped a hoop and bust just this side of Dos Cabesas. The poor kid is plumb dry."
"Two bits a head," says Texas Pete.
At that the woman comes out, a little bit of a baby in her arms. The kid had fuzzy yellow hair, and its face was flushed red and shiny. "Shorely you won't refuse a sick child a drink of water, sir," says she.