Clark, returning home a day or two later and finding his partner dead,
vowed vengeance on the Kid, and this, several years later, he found
opportunity to gratify. A few months later, Clark and Scanlan having
occasion to be away, left a young engineer, J. A. Mercer, at the house,
with a caution to be on the lookout for the Indians. Soon after, Mercer
discovered three of them crawling up towards the house, but was in time
to seize a rifle and fire at them, and as he did so they broke and ran.
However, they took five of Clark’s horses in exchange for three of
their own, which they killed before leaving.
For several years Clark impatiently bided his time. To him the mills
of the gods were, indeed, grinding slowly, but they were grinding, and
the time was approaching when the grist should be delivered. In the
meantime the Kid was continuing to lengthen his trail of blood. Now
here, now there, the wily outlaw was ever at his work. A murder here
today, he is heard of one hundred miles away tomorrow, leaving a trail
behind him marked by where he had changed his mount by the stealing of
a new one at some ranch, leaving his old one dead, in exchange. This
was his practice, killing the animal he might leave by stabbing in the
side, thus avoiding the sacrifice of any of his ammunition, which he
could ill afford to lose. Being an outlaw with his own people, he found
it difficult to replenish his belt.