"Those were the very last words Charley spoke," said Frank, more to himself than to his listener.
"I guess Miles City was the toughest place going then," said the boy. "Why, I was driving through the town with my father one day (that was when we were opening a big coal mine down the Yellowstone) and we went under a half-finished railroad bridge and there, hanging from the ties, were the bodies of three men. Lynched. Ugh!" John shuddered at the remembrance of it.
"Was that the case where there was some talk of the men being killed first and hung afterwards?" inquired Frank.
"Yes. There had been a row in Brown's place, and these three had been put in jail, but during the night they were taken out and in the morning were found as we saw them. The regular vigilance committee had not done it, and the doctor said death first, hanged afterwards."
Both of these characteristic stories were common talk whenever a crowd got together, but neither Frank nor John had heard the facts told by an eye-witness before.
It must not be thought all the conversation of these two was of this blood-and-thunder variety. Frank had lived in the East, and marvellous were the tales he told about the buildings, the people, and their doings. The two were so interested in each other, and what each had seen, that the time passed very quickly, and so John was surprised when Frank said late one afternoon: "See that blue range of hills about thirty miles ahead?"
John looked and nodded an assent.
"Well, Baker's ranch is right at the foot of them, and Sun River runs through it. That's where we're goin'."
The following morning they rode towards the ranch house, past the minor buildings, the barns and sheds, past the hay stack, now bulging with its winter store, past the inevitable horse corral, just then containing several horses which were circling round trying to avoid a cow-puncher's "rope." As they reached the ranch house proper—a low, single-storied house built of logs and roofed with split logs covered with turf—a chunky, white-haired man in overalls stepped out of the door.
"Hello, Mr. Baker," said Frank. "You see you can't lose me."