Porous looked his astonishment: “Cavalry?”
“An' I'm going after th' dogs who did it,” he continued, ignoring the question. “Are yu with me?—Yu used to pal with some of them, didn't yu?”
“We did, an' we're shore with yu!” cried Porous.
“Yore right,” endorsed Silent. “But who done it?”
“That gang what's punchin' for th' Bar-20-Hopalong Cassidy is th' one I'm pining for. Yu fellers can take care of Peters an' Connors.”
The two stiffened and exchanged glances of uncertainty and apprehension. The outfit of the Bar-20 was too well known to cause exuberant joy to spring from the idea of war with it, and well in the center of all the tales concerning it were the persons Tex had named. To deliberately set forth with the avowed intention of planting these was not at all calculated to induce sweet dreams.
Tex sneered his contempt.
“Yore shore uneasy: yu ain't a-scared, are yu?” He drawled. Porous relaxed and made a show of subduing his horse: “I reckon I ain't scared plumb to death. Yu can deal me a hand,” he asserted.
“I'll draw cards too,” hastily announced Silent, buttoning his vest. “Tell us about that jamboree over in th' Panhandle.”
Tex repeated the story as he had heard it from a bibulous member of the Barred Horseshoe, and then added a little of torture as a sauce to whet their appetites for revenge.