POW CHALLENGE July 10th
"Pa, was it absolutely necessary to come into town in this state?"
said Adam, as the four Cartwrights approached the outskirts of
Virginia City. All four were naked as the day they were born.

"We should've gone home first, sure enough, and picked up some more
duds, Pa," said Hoss. "If Betsy Sue sees me like this, I'll never
hear the end of it."

"Dunno what you two are so bothered about," said Joe, laughing at the
discomfiture of his older brothers. "If you've got it, flaunt it, I
always say. And I've definitely got it."

"That's enough of that kind of talk," said Ben, his anger overriding
his embarrassment. "We are not here to display our credentials to the
female population of the town, but to report a crime. We will slip
along to Roy's office, explain to him what happened and then ask him
to fetch us some clothes and hire four mounts from the livery stable.
Then we will ride home and leave Roy to track down the thieves and
retrieve our property."

"Well, I dunno about the rest of you fellas, but I'm volunteerin' for
the posse and I'm gonna ride out with Roy and catch them varmints
that took our horses and our clothes," said Hoss.

"And I'm coming with you," said Adam. "Comes to something when a man
can't take a swim on his own property, without having his things
stolen. Those men are going to wish they'd never robbed us
Cartwrights, when I'm finished with them."

"In that case, I'm going with you," said Joe. "They took Coochie and
no one gets away with taking my horse."

"I'm not sure that it's a good idea for you boys to go," said
Ben. "Obviously you are upset, as I am, but we should still let these
men be punished by the due process of the law, and you sound like a
lynch mob."

"I ain't talkin' 'bout lynchin' 'em, Pa, but I think they deserve a
poundin' for what they did, at least," said Hoss.

"I wasn't planning to lynch them, either, Pa," said Adam. "But I
agree with Hoss, they have humiliated us and just a prison sentence
doesn't seem enough, somehow."

"If there's gonna be a fight, then I wanna be there," said Joe.

"All right, boys, we'll all go, as I think I should be there, just to
make sure you don't do anything you'll regret," said Ben.

They managed to get to Roy's, without being seen, as it was the time
of day when the good citizens of Virginia City were at home eating
their supper and the not so good ones were in the saloon.
Roy was rather surprised to have four naked Cartwrights arrive in his
office, and it took him a while to recover from the shock.

"Right, let me get this straight," he said, once the four of them
were wrapped up in blankets and each had a cup of coffee in their
hands. "You had been recovering some steers from a boggy piece of
ground and you decided to take a dip in the lake, before going home.
You rinsed off your clothes and lay them on some rocks to dry and
then you all dove into the water. You swam quite a way from the shore
and so were unable to stop the two men who turned up, and stole your
clothes and your horses. You weren't close enough to catch a good
look at them, but one was a big man and one was more of average
height and they didn't appear to have any mounts with them. Is that
all you can tell me?"

"Yes, Roy, it is," said Ben. "They headed towards town and so we
hoped we might find them here, but we didn't see our horses, as we
came through the streets."

"I doubt they'd stay around, in case anyone recognised the horses,"
said Roy. "I'll go and ask Frank to open up his store and I'll get
you something to wear. Then we'll go and rent some mounts, and make a
start. It's a nice, summer evening and so we should have a few hours
of daylight left."

"Sounds good to me, Roy," said Adam. "Do you mind if we borrow some
guns? They took ours."

"Help yourself, Adam, though I don't think I have enough holsters,"
said Roy.

"We'll stick 'em in our belts," said Hoss.

Roy and the four Cartwrights were soon on their way. Fortunately for
them, the men had left a pretty clear trail, as the Cartwrights could
all recognise their own horse's tracks, and it didn't take them long
to catch up with the thieves. By the time they did, it was just about
dusk, but this was an advantage to the Roy and the Cartwrights, as it
meant that the men had made camp for the night.
Both of them were asleep, having made a brief stop in town and
purchased some whisky, and it was an easy task for Roy and his posse
to get the drop on them.
The larger of the two men was wearing Hoss' clothes and the other one
was dressed in a mixture of Ben's and Adam's things.
Once Roy had them both disarmed and in handcuffs, he demanded to know
who they were.It transpired that they had broken out of prison, and
had been desperate to swap their prison garb for civilian clothes.
They were on foot and so the horses were heaven sent to them.

"We'll camp here tonight and head back to town in the morning," said
Roy.

"Fine by me," said Ben. "I'm glad we stopped in town, long enough, to
get some food," and he began to cook it.

The following morning they saddled up and prepared to return to town.
The prisoners were able to ride the rented horses, as the Cartwrights
now had their own mounts back. Joe made a big fuss of Cochise and the
larger of the two men, Jack, said, "That horse is pure mean, I
couldn't get on her."

"She wouldn't let scum like you on her back," said Joe. "It's a good
job you didn't hurt her, or else I'd have pounded you into the
ground."

Jack laughed. "Oh yeah, you and whose army? You couldn't pound an ant
into the ground."

"Just you watch me," said Joe, advancing on the man, with his fists
clenched, but before he could get too close, Ben grabbed his arm.

"The law will deal with him, Joseph," said Ben. "Let's ride."

As they were nearing town, Adam suddenly called a halt.

"I think these men need to be taught that they can't get away with
humiliating us Cartwrights. Don't know about you and Hoss, Pa, but I
want my clothes back, now."

"Yeah, so do I," said Hoss, and Ben asked for his, too.

"But we ain't got nothing to wear," said Jack. "We burned our prison
clothes, so's we couldn't be traced through 'em."

"In that case you'll havta ride into town like we did, nekkid," said
Hoss. "At least ya have the horse to sit on, we had ta walk in."

"Yeah, with all our assets on display," said Joe.

The men could see that the Cartwrights meant business and so they
ended up riding the last half mile of their journey to the jailhouse,
naked. As it was the middle of the morning, the streets were full of
people, and so the men made an embarrassing dash from the hitching
rail to the jail.

"That'll teach ya to rob us," said Hoss, laughing at the men, as they
ran into the cell and covered themselves with the blankets from the
cots.

"You could say that we got to the bottom of that crime," said Joe,
and the rest of the family groaned at his rather tasteless attempt at
humour.

                             THE END
Little Joe forever
Lynne

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