"He's had time to meditate a little on his sins," answered Alice.
"No—not Long Bill ain't. If he started in meditatin' on them, he'd starve to death before he'd got meditated much past sixteen—an' he's fifty, if he's a day."
"There are four of us and only three horses," exclaimed Endicott, as he tightened his cinch.
"That's all right. The horses are fresh. I'm light built, an' we'll change off makin' 'em carry double. It ain't so far."
The morning sun was high when the horses turned into the coulee that led to Long Bill's ranch. Bat, who had scouted ahead to make sure that he had not succeeded in slipping his bonds and had plotted mischief, sat grinning beside the corral fence as he listened, unobserved, to the whimpering and wailing of the man who lay bound beside the cabin door.
"What's the matter, Willie?" smiled Tex, as he slipped from his seat behind Endicott's saddle. "Didn't your breakfast set right?"
The man rolled to face them at the sound of the voice, and such a stream of obscene blasphemy poured from his lips as to cause even the Texan to wince. Without a word the cowboy reached for a bar of soap that lay awash in the filthy water of a basin upon a bench beside the door, and jammed it down the man's throat. The sounds changed to a sputtering, choking gurgle. "Maybe that'll learn you not to talk vile when there's ladies around."
"Water!" the man managed to gasp.
"Will you quit your damn swearin'?"
Long Bill nodded, and Tex held a dipper to his lips.