"The Reverend Beanibus Slade, him of Dead Gulch memory and Two-Shot Dick fame, will now lead us in singing the twenty-third Psalm!" scoffed General Jones. "Come along with us, Reverend sir—and bring yore burial service."
"I've said it," repeated Bean stubbornly.
Dakota tried to oil the surface. "We don't need rifles this time—it's an easy job.... But we'll shore miss the Kid. He shore was the handy kid with the blinkers on a dark night, and he'd hold a close second to yours truly with a gun. Poor Kid! I'd give my left ear to get even with the guy that got him. I've a bit o' lead resarved for him."
CHAPTER VIII
A LAMB AMONG THE LIONS
"There y'are, mister. That's your place."
Stamford unlimbered his stiffened legs and raised himself in the buggy to look out over the valley of the H-Lazy Z.
"It's my place all right," he moaned. "I don't care what ranch it is. I didn't think Canada was so wide as that sixty miles of prairie. Sixty miles! Humph! I've a complete set of disarticulated bones that's ready to go into any witness box and swear it's at least umpteen million miles, and then some."
The youthful driver grinned.
"Oh, you'd get used to that. I 'member when I was raw——"