Page:Max Brand--The Seventh Man.djvu/45

Rh his audience disappeared, but having started talking the impetus carried him along, he held Vic Gregg with his hazy eyes.

“But they didn't all finish like Plummer, not all the bad ones. No sirree! There was Boone Helm.”

“I've heard about him,” growled Vic, but the old man had fixed his glance and his reminiscent smile upon the past and his voice was soft with distance when he spoke again.

“Helm was a sure enough bad one, son. They don't grow like him no more. Wild Bill was a baby compared with Helm, and Slade wasn't no man at all, even leavin' in the lies they tell about him. Why, son, Helm was just a lobo, in the skin of a man”

“Like Barry?” put in Lorrimer, drifting closer down the bar.

“Who's he?”

“Ain't you heard of Whistlin' Dan? The one that killed Jim Silent and busted up his gang. Why, they say he's got a wolf that he can talk to like it was a man.”

Old Lew chuckled.

“They say a lot of things,” he nodded, “but I'll tell a man that a wolf is a wolf and they ain't nothin' that can tame 'em. Don't you let 'em feed you up on lies like that, Lorrimer. But Helm was sure bad. He killed for the sake of killin', but he died game. When the boys run him down he swore on the bible that he's never