“Tell me some more about it, Terry,” he asked.

“Some more about what?”

“About Whistling Dan’s death—­about the burning of the saloon,” said Haines.

“What the hell!  Are you still thinkin’ about that?”

“I certainly am.”

“Then I’ll trade you news,” said Terry Jordan, lowering his voice so that it would not reach the suspicious ear of Jim Silent.  “I’ll tell you about the burnin’ if you’ll tell me something about Barry’s fight with Silent!”

“It’s a trade,” answered Haines.

“All right.  Seems old Joe Cumberland had a hunch to clean up the landscape—­old fool! so he jest up in the mornin’ an’ without sayin’ a word to any one he downs to the saloon and touches a match to it.  When he come back to his house he tells his girl, Kate, what he done.  With that she lets out a holler an’ drops in a faint.”

Haines muttered.

“What’s the matter?” asked Terry, a little anxiously.

“Nothin,” said Haines.  “She fainted, eh?  Well, good!”

“Yep.  She fainted an’ when she come to, she told Cumberland that Dan was in the saloon, an’ probably too weak to get out of the fire.  They started for the place on the run.  When they got there all they found was a pile of red hot coals.  So everyone figures that he went up in the flames.  That’s all I know.  Now what about the fight?”

Lee Haines sat with fixed eyes.

“There isn’t much to say about the fight,” he said at last.

“The hell there isn’t,” scoffed Terry Jordan.  “From what I heard, this Whistling Dan simply cut loose and raised the devil more general than a dozen mavericks corralled with a bunch of yearlings.”

“Cutting loose is right,” said Haines.  “It wasn’t a pleasant thing to watch.  One moment he was about as dangerous as an eighteen-year-old girl.  The next second he was like a panther that’s tasted blood.  That’s all there was to it, Terry.  After the first blow, he was all over the chief.  You know Silent’s a bad man with his hands?”

“I guess we all know that,” said Jordan, with a significant smile.

“Well,” said Haines, “he was like a baby in the hands of Barry.  I don’t like to talk about it—­none of us do.  It makes the flesh creep.”

There was a loud crackling among the underbrush several hundred yards away.  It drew closer and louder.

“Start up your works agin, will you, Bill?” called Silent.  “Here comes Shorty Rhinehart, an’ he’s overdue.”

In a moment Shorty swung from his horse and joined the group.  He gained his nickname from his excessive length, being taller by an inch or two than Jim Silent himself, but what he gained in height he lost in width.  Even his face was monstrously long, and marked with such sad lines that the favourite name of “Shorty” was affectionately varied to “Sour-face” or “Calamity.”  Silent went to him at once.

“You seen Hardy?” he asked.