Mattie goes to the “telegraph office” and sends a message to Daggett. Begrudgingly, Stonehill agrees to pay her $325 as soon as she produces a letter from Daggett outlining the terms of the deal. Eventually he realizes that she and her lawyer- Lawyer Daggett-will build a strong case, and after much haggling, Mattie convinces him to buy back the ponies and to pay for the horse that Chaney stole, since it was on Stonehill’s property when Chaney took it. Mattie threatens to bring him to court, but he doesn’t take her threat seriously. The next day, she visits Stonehill and asks him to buy back the ponies, but he refuses, saying the deal has already been made. That night, she stays at the same boarding house where her father and Chaney stayed. Mattie then tells Yarnell-her father’s employee who accompanied her to Fort Smith-to travel back to Little Rock with Frank’s body while she stays in Fort Smith. He also tells her that Rooster will be in court the following morning. As such, Mattie decides to hire Rooster Cogburn, a marshal the sheriff says is ruthless. The police believe Chaney and the gang have escaped into Indian Territory, where they have no jurisdiction. He then ran to Stonehill’s stables, where he clubbed a watchman in the face and made off with Frank’s horse, Judy.Īfter her father’s death, Mattie travels to Fort Smith and talks to the sheriff, discovering that the police are hardly doing anything to catch Chaney, who has run off with a notorious bandit named Lucky Ned Pepper and his gang, a group that recently robbed a mail train. Chaney shot him and stole two gold pieces from him. As he vowed to steal back his money, Frank tried to stop him.

Afterwards, he flew into a rage, got drunk, and decided to go after the men who won his money. When they arrived in Fort Smith, though, Chaney acted wildly by gambling his money away.

Taking pity on Chaney-a seemingly luckless man-Frank agreed to give him a job. While Mattie stayed at home with her mother and two younger siblings, Frank Ross took along Tom Chaney, a man from Louisiana who appeared one day and asked for work. Planning to buy a group of ponies from a man named Stonehill, her father traveled from Little Rock to Fort Smith, Arkansas to make the deal. Nonetheless, this is what she does after her father’s murder. Mattie Ross acknowledges that most people don’t believe a fourteen-year-old girl is capable of avenging her father’s death.

True Grit by Charles Portis