The Settling of the Sage

by Hal G. Evarts

Harris's rope tightened on his neck and threw him. As he rolled over Foster's noose snared both hind feet and he was held stretched and helpless between two trained cow horses while the men disengaged the bundle that had once been Bangs. One boot heel was missing and his foot was jammed through the stirrup, evidence that the horse had pitched with him and the loosened heel had come off, allowing his foot to slip through as he was thrown.

Harris pointed to a burnt red streak across the right side of Bangs's neck. He unbuttoned his shirt and revealed a similar streak under his left armpit.

Old Rile cursed horribly and his face seemed to have aged ten years.

"They learned that from the albino," he said. "It's an old trick that always works. They dropped a rope on him and jerked him, pried off his heel, shoved his boot through and laid the quirt on his horse. Blue did the rest."

Both men knew well how it had happened. Bangs had run across the camp of some of the wild bunch, men he had known for long, and the slow-thinking youth had suspected no more danger from riding on up to them at this time than at any other. He had told them of the shot fired at Harris and they had known that some other Three Bar man would find the trail leading from the direction of their camp. And Bangs would mention having found them there, linking them with the bushwhacker.

When Bangs had left a pair of them had ridden a distance with him and accomplished their aim.

"It's coming dark," Harris said. "And by morning they'll be thirty miles away. That sort of a killing was never fastened on to any man yet."

The old man raised a doubled fist and his face was lined with sorrow.

"Bangs was almost a son to me," he said. "I taught him to ride—and we've rode together on every job since then. You hear me! Some one is going to die for this!"

It was an hour after sundown when they reached the wagon with all that was earthly of Bangs lashed across the blue horse and it was midnight before the five men who had followed the trail returned with the word that they had been unable to even sight the man they tracked.