Without further questioning Whitey sat down and told the story of the adventure, from the boys’ awakening to their finding the bodies of the three men hanging from the railroad bridge.

“So you were right about String an’ Ham’s bein’ crooks,” Bill said, when the boy had finished.

“Yes, but even so, it seems terrible for them to die that way,” Whitey replied.

“The express folks is tired o’ havin’ their cars robbed, an’ if you’d known what I found out at the Junction, you might o’ saved yourself some trouble,” said Bill.  “They was a shipment of a hundred thousand dollars in gold in that there car, an’ they was six fellers went along to pertect it.  Not detectives, or nothin’, just fellers that was hired, an’ was dyin’ for excitement.  I reck’n some o’ the passengers was as tired o’ bein’ held up as those fellers was pinin’ for excitement, an’ when String an’ Ham an’ Whiff made their poor little play, they musta thought they’d struck a hornet’s nest.”

“But to hang them,” Whitey protested.  “Why didn’t they shoot them, if they had to kill them?”

“Well, ye see hangin’ makes it look worse for the next fellers what thinks o’ holdin’ up a train,” said Bill.  “They’d stole three o’ our hosses, anyway, an’ that’s a hangin’ offense.”

But Whitey was not inclined to argue about the justice or injustice of the lynching.  He went away with Injun, and tried to eat.  And he tried, too, to forget the horror of the scene at the bridge.  But all his life long he never quite succeeded in doing that.

* * * * *

And that night, in the bunk house, the talk was all about the tragedy of the morning.  Bill Jordan and four of the cowboys were there, to say nothing of Slim, the cook.  Slim had another grievance, for, now that Ham had gone, he was again forced to cook for the men, misery or no misery.

Whitey loved to sit in the long, half-lighted room, and listen to the talk and yarns of the cowboys, for, “boys” they were called, whether they were eighteen or fifty, and in many ways boys they seemed to have remained.

They had threshed over the lynching.  Whitey had answered a thousand questions about his experiences, had been praised and blamed with equal frankness, and now he was glad to see that the subject was to be dropped.  For it had reminded Buck Higgins of lariats and their merits, especially for hanging men.

“For all-round use give me a braided linen,” said Buck.

He was speaking of a rope that is made as its name suggests, and is very strong.  If you have ever been in the West, you probably have seen a mounted cowboy carrying one of these thin but strong ropes coiled at the horn of his saddle, or dragging on the ground behind him to take the kinks out of it.

“Rawhide’s purty good,” suggested Shorty Palmer.

“Yes, but braided linen for me,” Buck declared.  “It’s got any other kind o’ rope beat a mile for strength.”