I'd showed Taggart the diamond image one day while Ezela was asleep in the boat, and he'd got greedy for it.
Ezela screamed when she saw him getting close to me with the knife, and I woke in time to grab him before he got a chance to get the knife into me.

He finally broke away, leaving all the treasure he'd brought except a little that he had in his pockets--he'd had a bundle of it strapped to his belt besides that--and I didn't see him again for four years.
"I took Ezela up the Pecos to the Connors', where I'd left you, bought a wagon and horses and a few things--bedding and grub and such stuff--and lit out for New Mexico.

I figured that I had enough of the kind of friends I'd been keeping, and I didn't want to be ridiculed for tying up to an Indian girl--white folks don't like to see that.

I came here and took up this land, figuring that I wouldn't be disturbed.

I'd been here four years when Taggart came.