Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/175

 can carry my own blame, and take the consequences for all the wrong I do any livin' man. It's a plumb fool thing you gentlemen's set for me to do, but I'm just a big enough fool to try it, even if I lose."

Texas flung the saddle on his horse, Winch standing by making that peculiar little hissing noise through his slant teeth. It was as if he tried to whistle softly, but the slant of his teeth was too sharp to confine the steam.

"You'd better wait till it's a little later," he suggested.

"It's my expedition, sir; I'll start whenever I feel called on to start."

"And come back—when?"

"In time enough to meet you, sir, any time and place you pick."

Texas stood a moment with his toe in the stirrup, his face turned to Winch as if waiting his arrangement of the next meeting. The little bow-legged gun-slinger said nothing; only waved his hand aS if passing that along to a future time.

Hartwell rode away with the headlong suddenness of a bee striking a line for its tree. He was so indignant, so thoroughly angry, over the impossible thing they had laid out for him to do that he would have fought them all in a bunch. But he was reasonable enough to know that it was no state of mind for a man to rise up in and meet a great