cket, 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. We thought you
wouldn't have no guts, an' we'd----"

"Any what?"

The Texan regarded the other hopelessly. "Oh hell!" he muttered
disgustedly. "Can't you talk no English? Where was you raised?"

The other laughed. "Go on, I will try to follow you."

"I can't chop 'em up no finer than one syllable. But I'll shorten up
the dose sufficient for your understandin' to grasp. It's this way:
D'you know what a frame-up is?"

Endicott nodded.

"Well, Choteau County politics is in such a condition of onwee that a
hangin' would be a reg'lar tonic for the party that's in; which it's
kind of bogged down into an old maid's tea party. Felonious
takin's-off has be'n common enough, but there hasn't no hangin's
resulted, for the reason that in every case the hangee has got friends
or relations of votin' influence. Now, along comes you without no
votin' connections an' picks off Purdy, which he's classed amongst
human bein's, an' is therefore felonious to kill. There ain't nothin'
to it. They'd be poundin' away on the scaffold an' testin' the rope
while the trial was goin' on. Besides which you'd