"Now," began Isham Scarborough, "perhaps you can talk. You ain't the first Sorry horse-thief that has tried to hold out on us, but they danged sure talked—or hung. So you never even heard of the Sorry Blacks?"
"No, I never did," answered the prisoner stoutly, and Isham shook down the loop.
"Say, now listen," he warned, "we know doggoned well that you ain't no friend of ours. We're from Texas, see, and back where we come from no white man rides a saddle like that. So you're ditched at the start by that center-fire rigging and the danged fresh way you've got, but before we stretch your neck we'll give you a chance to tell where you got that horse."
He paused and opened up the hangman's loop, and the prisoner found his tongue.
"I bought him in Bowie," he declared in a passion, "and I've got the bill of sale in my pocket. But I swear I never heard of the Blacks in my life—and I don't know what you're talking about."
"Well, the Bassett gang, then!" broke in Red Scarborough roughly, "ain't you never heerd tell of the Dirty Black Bassetts? Well, that's the outfit we're talking about!"
"Well, why didn't you say so?" demanded the prisoner resentfully. "Of course I've heard of the Bassetts. But is that any reason for holding a man up and threatening to hang him for a horse-thief? You must be some of the Scarboroughs, but they informed me back in Tonto——"
"Well, what did they inform you?" prompted Isham hectoringly, and the prisoner drew himself up.
"I was informed," he said, "that the Scarboroughs were Southern gentlemen."