With a last assurance of his intention to help them, Mr. McKeever left. Boyd grinned.
"He did help me," he observed. "He knows now I'm with Morgan, and nobody can say that's not so!"
Kirby laughed. "Reckon that's true, kid. You locked yourself right into the corral along with the rest of us bad men. Look's like you've been outfought this time, Rennie."
Drew threw himself back under the tree. So Boyd had won this round—they were still in Kentucky and not too far from Oak Hill.
5
Bardstown Surrenders
"Now that's what I call true hospitality, gentlemen, true hospitality." Kirby caressed his middle section gently with both hands, smiling dreamily into the lacing of apple boughs over his head. "I ain't had me a feed like that since we took that sutler's wagon back outside Mount Sterlin'. 'Mos' forgot theah was such vittles lyin' 'bout to be sampled. An' you got us most of the cream, too, 'cause you're poor little misguided boys a-runnin' 'way to be with us desperate characters. Git me a bowie knife, an' I'll show you how to cut throats—all free, too."
Drew laughed, but Boyd did not appear amused. They had been favored with a short but pungent lecture from Mr. McKeever, served along with food, which to Drew made it worth the return of listening decorously to a listing of their sins.
"I ain't goin' home," Boyd repeated stubbornly.