"Now you want to leave this locality about as fast as your heels can carry you," said Fred.
With that the fellow, without stopping to pick up his hat, turned around and left, and all he would say to his companions was:
"Come, boys, let's get away from here. This is no place for us."
He stopped at the well, took a dipper full of water, and then started off, while the other three followed him.
That big cowboy was never seen in that part of Texas afterward.
The storekeeper told the story to his customers as they came into the store, and it was soon known all over that county.
The facts of the lynching of the four Mexican cattle thieves had been published all over that part of the State, and Fred and Terry were relieved from the odium of having had anything to do with the affair, other than the capture of the men.
The sheriff and his deputies took charge of the bodies, as they were found hanging to the trees, and buried them by the road-side.
They were buried in one pit, and above them was a head-board, on which was painted in large letters the story of their fate.
Tom Hecker had written to four of his former cowboy companions that he had found a place with Fearnot and Olcott again, and that they wanted four more of them to join him.