“Was you ever anyways near to being hung?”
Biron shied a pebble at a cactus as he put this question. All in all, it was as good a conversational opening as the weather,—not so rock-ribbed, perhaps, but with more dramatic possibilities.
“No,” I said, “I don’t think I ever was. Were you, Toby?”
It was mean of me to ask her. Toby hates to be outdone, or admit her experiences have been incomplete. I saw her agile mind revolving for some adventure in her past that she could bring up as a creditable substitute, but she had never been anywhere near to being hung, and she knew I knew it.
“H’m-m,” she said noncommittally, her inflection implying tremendous reserves,—“were you?”
“Onct,” replied Biron, “only onct. But if anyone ever tells you he was near hanging, and was brave under the circumstances, don’t you believe him. There I was with the rope around my neck, and I a hollerin’ and a squealin’ like a baby, and beggin’ to be let off. There aint no man livin’, I’ll say, feelin’ them pullin’ and sawin’ away on his neck that aint a goin’ to bawl and cry an’ beg f’r mercy.”
“What was the—occasion—if you don’t mind our asking?”
Biron shied another stone at the cactus and missed.
“Well, you see,” he raced along, “another feller had stole some horses, an’ knowin’ how he come by them an’ all that, I jest sorter relieved him of them. An’ I was a ridin’ along toward Mexico when they caught up with me.”
“But I thought they no longer hanged people for,—er—for——”