“He’s been the torment of my life,” snarled Bull. “I hate him as I never hated any one, and every time I try to get square on him, somehow everything goes wrong. Just think of being penned up in a black cave with a lot of skeletons. Confound him! But he won’t get away this time as he did before.”
This interesting and charitable dialogue was cut short just then by one of the other four.
“What are you fellows going to do?” he cried.
“We’ll be there in a moment!” whispered Bull. “Don’t talk so loud. Say, fellows (this to his own crowd) I say we take Mallory off by ourselves. Those other fellows won’t stand half we want to do to him.”
“That’s so,” assented the dyspeptic Vance. “What in thunder did we let them come for?”
“We couldn’t have handled Mallory and Texas alone,” replied Bull, sourly. “And we had to take Texas, else he’d have waked up and followed us sure. But I guess it’ll be all right. Come ahead.”
The four walked over and joined the rest of the yearlings then.
“We’ve decided what we’ll do,” said Bull. “We won’t need you fellows any more. We’re very much obliged to you for helping us.”
“Pshaw!” growled one of them. “I want to stay and see the fun.”
“But there’s more danger with so many away,” said Bull, persuasively.