“Ever get stretched with one?” Jim Walker asked, with interest.

“Nope,” Buck replied, “but I seen other fellers that did.”

“G’wan, spill your yarn about it,” said Shorty.  “We don’t care whether it’s true or not.”

Buck was inclined to be offended.  “Say, you all never heard me tell nothin’ but th’ truth,” he snorted.

“Sure, we didn’t,” said Jim.  “Leastways, your yarns is told about places so far away that we has t’ take ’em as true, not knowin’ any one to call on for t’ verify ’em.”

“Well, if they’re made up, you c’n make up just as good ones yourselves,” said Buck, and he lapsed into silence.

“Your tale interests me strangely,” said Bill.  “Get to it.  You started fine.”

“He didn’t start at all,” Jim said.

“That’s what Bill means,” explained Shorty.

“Aw, let him tell th’ story,” said Charlie Bassett.  “You fellers that ain’t liars yourselves is all jealous.”

Whitey would have thought that the tale was to go untold had he not known that every story of Buck’s met with this sort of reception, and that nothing short of an earthquake could keep him from talking.

“Well, just to show you fellers you can’t queer me, I will tell about this here lynchin’,” Buck declared, after a pause.

“‘Twas back in Wyomin’, ‘bout five years ago,” Buck began, “an’ I was workin’ for the Lazy I. An’ rustlers was good an’ plenty.  An’ every one knows that there ain’t on easier brand to cover up than a lazy I. It was got up by old man Innes, what owned th’ ranch, an’ lived in Boston, an’ was so honest an’ unsuspectin’ that he’d ‘a’ trusted Slim, here, with a lead nickel.”

Fortunately Slim was asleep, and did not hear this reflection on his character, so Buck continued: 

“Well, our stock had been disappearin’ in bunches, an’ purty soon them bunches begins t’ seem more like herds, an’ somethin’ had t’ be did, an’ Squeak Gordon, th’ manager, wa’n’t no man for th’ job.”

“Squeak!” interrupted Jim.  “That’s a fine name for a white man.”

“’Count of his voice,” Buck explained briefly, and went on.  “So it was up t’ Lem Fisher, th’ foreman, an’ him an’ ’bout seven punchers, includin’ me, got th’ job.  ’Course, we had some idea of where them steers was goin’, an’ what brands was goin’ over ours, but we was wantin’ somethin’ pos’tive before we c’d get busy.

“I started talkin’ ’bout braided linen ropes, not ’bout cattle thieves, so they’s no use tellin’ you of all th’ figurin’, an’ trailin’, an’ hard ridin’ we did.  You know old Mr. Shakespeare sez that levity’s th’ soul o’ wit.”

“Brevity,” corrected Whitey.

“What’s the difference?” demanded Shorty.  “Buck don’t know what either o’ them words means.”

“Neither do you,” retorted Buck.

“Anyway, they ain’t got nothin’ t’ do with braided linen ropes.  G’wan,” commanded Bill.