How the tale had
crossed all the wild mountains which lay between in so brief a space no man
could say, but first there ran a whisper and then a stir, and then half a
dozen men came in at once, each with an elaboration of the theme more
horrible than the last. The store-keeper culled the choicest fragments from
every version, strung them together with a narrative of his own fertile
invention, polished off the tale by a few rehearsals in his home, and then
placed his product on the open market. The very first day he kept the
store-room well filled from dawn until dark.
And this was the creation to which Lee Haines had to listen, impatient,
sifting the chaff from the grains of truth. Down upon Alder, exactly at
midnight, had ridden a cavalcade headed by that notorious, half-legendary
man-slayer, Dan Barry--Whistling Dan. While his crew of two-score hardened
ruffians held the doors and the windows with leveled rifles, Barry had
entered with a gun and a wolf--a wild wolf, and had butchered ten men,
wantonly. To add to the mystery, there was no motive of robbery for the
crime.
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