Dutch had a new rope in his hand with a loop at one end. He tossed it over the boy’s head and drew it taut. Two or three of the faces in the circle were almost as bloodless as that of the prisoner, but they were set to see the thing out.
“Will you tell now?” Bonfils asked.
Curly met him eye to eye. “No.”
“Come along then.”
One of the men caught his arm at the place where he had been wounded. The rustler flinched.
“Careful, Buck. Don’t you see you’re hurting his bad arm?” Sweeney said sharply.
“Sure. Take him right under the shoulder.”
“There’s no call to be rough with him.”
“I didn’t aim to hurt him,” Buck defended himself.
His grip was loose and easy now. Like the others he was making it up to his conscience for what he meant to do by doing it in the kindest way possible.