as along about four o'clock in the afternoon the cyclone struck
us; and it was such a small-sized one, when we did get it, we didn't
know whether to laugh or swear. But the cyclone himself didn't think
there was anything small about him: being Hart's nephew--so scared to
death all the few wits he ever had was knocked clean out of him--who
come into Palomitas, white as white-wash, riding bareback one of the
coach mules.

He just sort of rolled off the mule, in front of the Forest Queen, and
went in to the bar and got four drinks in him before he could speak a
word--and then he said he'd been held up at the Barranca Grande by
about two hundred road-agents who'd opened up on him and killed all
the mules except the one he'd got away on; and his getting away at
all, he said, was only because he'd put up such a fight he'd scared
'em--and after that because they couldn't hit him when once he was
off, and had the mule going on a dead run. Then he took two more
drinks, and told his story all over again; and as it was about the
same story both times--and he so scared, and by the time he told it
over again so set up with his drinks, it didn't seem likely he'd sense
enough left to be lying--the boys allowed like enough it was true.

What he had to tell--except he piled on more road-agents than was
needed--was about reasonable. He said he'd done well enough as far as
Pojuaque--where he'd had his dinner and changed mules, same as usual,
at old man Bouquet's. And after he'd left Pojuaque he'd got along all
right, he said, except he had to go slow through the sandhills, till
he come to the Barranca Grande.

It's a bad place, that barranca is. The road goes sharp down into it,
and then sharp up out of it--and both banks so steep you want all the
brakes you've got to get to the bottom of it, and more mules than
you're likely to have to get to the top on the other side.

Well, Hart's nephew said he'd just got the coach down to the bottom of
the barranca--he'd took the last of the slope at a run, he said, and
was licking away at his mules for all he was worth to start 'em up
the far side--when the road-agents opened on him, being hid in among
the cedar-bushes, from the top of the bank and from both sides of the
trail. You never seen such a blaze of shooting in all your life,
Hart's nephew said; and he said before he'd a chance to get a gun up
all his mules was hit but one. He said he jumped quick from the box,
taking both Winchesters a