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and my six shooter on him all the time. I put the irons on him. On the way to Las Vegas he confessed and, later on, he was hanged in Texas. But that fellow had guts. The drop didn't scare him at all, but it saved my life. "While I was sheriff of Doña Ana County," Garrett said, dropping into another reminiscence, "a sheriff from over in the Indian Nations rode into Las Cruces one day. He was trailing a convict who had broken out of the penitentiary back there after killing a guard and had sworn he'd never be taken alive. I located the fugitive on a ranch a few miles from town where he was cooking for a cattle outfit. Leaving the officer behind because the convict knew him, I rode out to the ranch with a Mexican deputy. I posted my deputy on guard outside and I stepped into the house.

"I sneaked along the hall with my six-shooter in my hand and ran on to my man in the kitchen. He was a strapping, powerful fellow and was wiping his hands on a towel, having just finished washing the dinner dishes. As I cracked down on him with my gun, he leaped at me and smashed me in the face with his fist. It was a punch like the kick of a mule. I staggered against the wall; he jumped out of the window. I clawed at him with my hands and tore the shirt off his back but he wriggled out of my grip. I rushed out the door and we met again head on on the porch. I smashed him over the head with my revolver and knocked him flat. But he I could have done it any time. We fought all over the porch. Finally he broke away and darted into a door. He was running through a hall to his room to get his gun. But my Mexican stepped inside just then and put a bullet