rry, "why not tell them to bring a coil of rope."

"What do you want with a rope, Terry?"

"Oh, Judge Lynch always has use for a rope for cattle thieves. I will
act as sheriff, if you don't wish to have anything to do with it.
Generally I am opposed to lynching, but this is a fair case."

"No, Terry, I don't believe in that. I'm sorry that, instead of
capturing them, we didn't shoot them and thus get rid of them without
calling in Judge Lynch."

The prisoners, of course, heard every word that the boys uttered. The
fact is, they were both talking for their benefit. The cowboys, though,
thought that they were in earnest and they would see a lynching, so when
the dawn of day began to appear in the east Fred sent one of the cowboys
back to the barn with instructions to bring down a coil of barb wire and
a coil of rope.

One of the prisoners, tied to the tree, begged that Mr. Fearnot would
come up to the tree and let him talk with him.

Fred did so, and the fellow said that if he wouldn't punish him and
would release him, he would leave the country and never show up there
again.

"Oh, yes; but it is bad policy to let a cattle thief go loose, after he
has been caught in the act."

Then the others began making similar promises, and never did men beg for
their lives as hard as they did.

One of the cowboys was sent off for wire and rope, and while he was gone
a farmer came by, making an early start for Crabtree.

The road passed within a couple of hundred yards of where the men were
tied to the tree, and he heard them talking as well as noticed the smoke
from the fire which Fred and Terry had built out there.

He left his team in the road, and coming into the woods, there learned
the whole secret of the situation.

He knew Fred and Terry, for he had frequently stopped at their ranch, so
he, on his way to town, notified every farmer and ranchman whom he
passed that Fearnot and Olcott were going to hang four cattle thieves
down at the lower end of their ranch.

Everybody who heard the news wanted to see the lynching, so they came
down there. Fred told them that he had no idea of taking the law in his
own hands, and that he intended taking the prisoners into town and
turning them over to the sheriff. All the prisoners, being Mexicans,
whom the farmers throughout that section hated like poison, stood in
great danger of being hanged at once by the angry ranchmen; but Fred
refused to permit it. He bargained with one o