They shook their heads.
`Him an' th' Deacon was killed over in th' Panhandle," he said.
"What!" chorused the pair.
"Jack Dorman, Shorty Danvers, Charley Teale, Stiffhat Bailey, Billy
Jackson, Terry Nolan an' Sailor Carson was lynched."
"What!" they shouted.
"Fish O'Brien, Pinochle Schmidt, Tom Wilkins, Apache Gordon, Charley
of th' Bar Y, Penobscot Hughes an' about twenty others died fightin'."
Porous looked his astonishment: "Cavalry?"
"An' I'm going after th' dogs who did it," he continued, ignoring
the question. "Are yu with me ? -Yu used to pal with some of them,
didn't yu?"
"We did, an' we're shore with yu!" cried Porous.
"Yore right," endorsed Silent. "But who done it?"
"That gang what's punchin' for th' Bar-20-Hopalong Cassidy is th'
one I'm pining for. Yu fellers can take care of Peters an' Connors."
The two stiffened and exchanged glances of uncertainty and
apprehension. The outfit of the Bar-20 was too well known to cause
exuberant joy to spring from the idea of war with it, and well in the
center of all the tales concerning it were the persons Tex had named.
To deliberately set forth with the avowed intention of planting these
was not at all calculated to induce sweet dreams.
Tex sneered his contempt.
"Yore shore uneasy: yu ain't a-scared, are yu?" He drawled. Porous
relaxed and made a show of subduing his horse: "I reckon I ain't
scared plumb to death.
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