"
Several of the cowboys shuddered and turned away. Very deliberately
the Texan rolled a cigarette.
"There is a box in my coat pocket, will you hand me one? Or is it
against the rules to smoke?" Without a word the Texan complied, and as
he held a match to the cigarette he stared straight into the man's
eyes: "You've started out good," he remarked gravely. "I'm just
wonderin' if you can play your string out." With which enigmatical
remark he turned to the cowboys: "The drinks are on me, boys. Jerk off
that rope, an' go back to town! An' remember, this lynchin' come off
as per schedule."
Alone in the cottonwood grove, with little patches of moonlight
filtering through onto the new-sprung grass, the two men faced each
other. Without a word the cowboy freed the prisoner's hands.
"Viewin' it through a lariat-loop, that way, the country looks better
to a man than what it really is," he observed, as the other stretched
his arms above his head.
"What is the meaning of all this? The lynching would have been an
atrocious injustice, but if you did not intend to hang me why should
you have taken the trouble to bring me out here?"
"'Twasn't no trouble at all. The main thing was to get you out of Wolf
River. The lynchin' part was only a joke, an' that's on us. You bein'
a pilgrim, that way, we kind of thought----"
"A what?"
"A pilgrim, or tenderfoot, or greener or chechako, or counter-jumper,
owin' to what part of the country you misfit into.
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