Page:Saga of Billy the Kid.djvu/54

The Mescalero Apaches occupying a reservation forty miles south of Lincoln complained that the "flour" with which Murphy had supplied them was bran. On top of this, Murphy’s enemies charged that on his contract he had been paid for supplies for two thousand Indians when there were only nine hundred on the reservation. The Department of Indian Affairs sent Mr. Angell from Washington to investigate. Murphy, suave, ingratiating, met the government representative at Lincoln, showered him with polite attentions, and accompanied him to the agency post. Mr. Angell examined the "flour" first. It was bran; no doubt about it. Murphy appeared astonished. Secret machinations of his enemies doubtless were responsible for the substitution. He would guard his shipments more carefully in the future. Nothing like this would happen again. All right.

Mr. Angell prepared next to count the Indians. Murphy volunteered assistance. The Indians were rounded up from every corner of the big reservation and assembled at the house of the agent. Seated on the front porch with Murphy at his side, Mr. Angell counted the Indians as they walked by in single file. The tally reached nine hundred. Still they filed by. When the procession ended, the count showed two thousand. Murphy beamed in triumph. His honesty apparently had been vindicated.

It was not until several weeks later that Mr. Angell learned that he had been tricked. In filing past him, the Indians, under coaching of Murphy emissaries, had disappeared from sight behind a hill and, doubling back, had marched past him again in a continuous circle. He hurried back to the reservation, rounded up the Indians a second time, and impounded them under guard in a great corral built for the purpose. Then he let them out one