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 "What!" exclaimed Larry in surprise, "you didn't fire a shot. Why, I heard at least thirty."

"Well, son, I am happy to inform you that they were not from our guns. The posse beat us to it by about five minutes. When we arrived on the scene they had gotten the entire rustler band. One was dead, and one was dying, though two will live to die on the gibbet."

The following afternoon six stalwart cow-punchers shouldered the casket which held the remains of their old pal, Bill, and marched up to the great cottonwood on the hilltop nearby. Then they set the casket upon the greensward close to the newly dug grave. No outsiders had been invited for this funeral, for, as Long Tom and Pony said, Bill would rather it would be just a home party without any fuss and feathers.

Finally after a long silence Pony rose and opened the Bible.

"Gents," he said, "I am going to read the twenty-third Psalm, but I want to explain to you cattle men, before I read it that this here David wan't no sech sheep man as we have today. He wan't no low-down miserable sort, but an honest-to-goodness, fair and square shepherd. I guess the cattle business hadn't got to going much in those days. Cattle ain't mentioned much in the Bible.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.' You