urse, the one big general thing
that didn't seem likely was that such a runt as Hart's nephew should
have stood up the way he said he did to as much as one road-agent--let
alone to the half-dozen or so that like enough had got at him. But
even a thing like Hart's nephew sometimes will put up a fight when
it's scared so bad it really don't more'n half know what it's
doing--and the boys allowed he might have done his fighting that way.

That the size of his scare had been big enough to make him do a'most
anything showed up from the way he kept on being scared after it was
all over--he coming into Palomitas looking like a wet white rag when,
by his own showing, he'd been out of reach of anybody's hurting him
for four or five hours anyway, and had had a chance to cool off at
Pojuaque while he was loading in old man Bouquet's wine. And so,
taking the story by and large, the boys allowed that likely most of it
was true; and some of 'em even went so far as to say maybe Hart's
nephew wasn't more'n half rotten, after all.

It was a good story to hear, anyway; and everybody was sorry the Hen
wasn't around to hear it. But when some of the boys tried to rout her
out, Tenderfoot Sal stood 'em off savage--telling 'em to go about
their business, and the Hen's head was aching bad. So the boys had to
take it out in making Hart's nephew keep on telling all he had to
tell over and over; and he was glad of the chance to, and did--till he
got so many drinks in him he couldn't tell anything; and then his
uncle, with Shorty Smith helping, took him off home.

* * * * *

Next morning, having pretty much slept himself sober, Hart's nephew
went cavorting around Palomitas--that little runt did--like he was
about ten foot tall! He had the whole thing over, in the course of the
day, a dozen times or more; and as he kept on telling it--now he was
sober enough to add things on--it got to be about the biggest fight
with road-agents that ever was. The thing that was biggest was the one
man he allowed he'd really seen. Why, Goliath of Gath wasn't in it
with that fellow, according to Hart's nephew! And he was that
desperate and dangerous to look at, he said, not many men would a-had
the nerve to try at him with only a derringer--and, what was more, to
bring him down. It was well along in the afternoon before we got it
for a fact that Hart's nephew really had killed the Greaser. The
thing growed that way--from