"Owner o' the Double Y?"
"Half owner—leastways, he was. Frenchy 's dead. You was cussin' his brother last night. I want to tell you about Frenchy."
Buck told the story in terse, graphic sentences, every one a vivid picture. He painted the scene of Trendley's crime to the accompaniment of a low-voiced growl of lurid profanity from Ned, who was quite unconscious of it. The relentless hunt for the criminals, extending through many months; the deadly retribution as one by one they were found; the baffling elusiveness of Slippery Trendley and the unknown manner of his fate when run to earth at last—one scene followed another until Buck left the arch devil in his story, as he had left him in fact, bound and helpless, looking up at the pitiless face of the man he had injured beyond the hope of pardon, their only witnesses the silent growths of Texas chaparral and the grieving eye of God.
It was a terrible story, even in the mere telling of it. Buck's level voice and expressionless face hid the seething rage which filled him now, as always, when his thoughts dwelt upon the awful drama. Ned's judgment was without restriction: "By the Eternal!" he swore, "that h—l-hound deserved whatever he got. D—d if you ain't made me sick." They rode in silence for several minutes and then: "Poor fellow! poor fellow!" he lamented. "Did you say he's dead?"
"Yes, Frenchy's gone under," answered Buck gravely. "You 'd 'a' liked him, Ned."
"Yes, I reckon I would," agreed Ned. He looked at the other, considering. "Where do you come in?" he asked. Buck's narrative had failed to connect the new-born "Cheyenne" as "Frenchy's pardner."
"I 'm Buck Peters," was the simple explanation.
Ned pulled his horse back onto its haunches and Buck wheeled and faced him. So they sat, staring, Ned inarticulate in his astonishment, Buck waiting. The power of coherent thought returned to Ned at last and he rode forward with outstretched hand. "Th' man as stuck to Frenchy McAllister through that deal is good enough for me to tie up to," he declared, and the grip of their hands was the cementing of an unfailing friendship. "An' I 'd like for Buck Peters to tell Frenchy's brother as I takes back what I said agin' him."
Their way led through an excellent grass country. The comparatively low ground surrounding Wayback rose gradually to Twin River and more rapidly after leaving that town. The undulating ground now formed in higher and more extensive mounds, rising in places to respectable-sized hills; usually the sides reached in long slopes the intervening depressions, but not infrequently they were abrupt and occasionally one was met which presented the broad, flat face of a bluff. The air was perceptibly colder but the bunch grass, hiding its wonderfully nourishing qualities under the hue it had acquired from the hot summer sun, was capable of fattening more cattle to the acre than any but the best lands of the Texan ranges with which Buck was familiar. Snow had not yet swept down over the country, though apt to come with a rush at any time. Even winter affected the range but little as a general rule; disastrous years were luckily few and far separated, so that the average of loss from severity of weather was small. The talk of the two naturally veered to this and kindred topics and Buck began stowing away nuggets of northern range wisdom as they fell from the lips of the more experienced Ned.
Studying the trail ahead of him, Buck broke the first silence by asking: "Ain't we near the boundary of the Double Y?"