"Well, I'll tell you," he replied. "It's like a case down on Poison Spider Creek. There was some fellows down there that they thought were stealin' horses. A train was coming along there and the captain of it lost two horses and he jest made up his mind who got 'em, and there wasn't no guessing about it neither, so he and his crowd made up their minds that they was the law. They went down to the fellow's camp and before the thieves could get out their guns the train men got 'em tight and run 'em off and got 'em up the creek where there was a tree, and hung 'em both. After awhile one of the herders found the horses off in the hills and brought 'em in and they were sure they hadn't been run off by the fellows either. Then they found that one of the fellows had a wife that they hadn't known about, and that she had heard that her man had been hung for stealing horses that he hadn't stole at all, so the captain who hung the fellows went over to where the woman was to fix things right with her and make her feel better. They didn't want to do a dirty trick." "You mean," said Dan, "that they went to sympathize with the widow and give her consolation." "Yes, that's it. And the captain said to her, 'Missis, it is our mistake, and the joke is on us.' They found the woman couldn't take a joke, but she went for her gun and put a bullet in the captain. Now, I thought that this fellow that you call Noah oughtn't to kill these boys for hurting the horses in that chase until he knows the horses are hurt. I guess the joke is on Noah." Then he laughed a big "ha! ha!" at the same time punching a nearby driver in the ribs. "Noah, Noah," he pronounced, in a slow, drawling tone as he moved onward, "seems to me I've heard of him before." "That's a good-natured fellow," said Tom, as he drifted up toward the little fire, "and the story he told is pretty nearly true, but it does not match the experiences of Jack Slade, who managed the stage route this side of Julesburg." "We have heard so much of Slade," said Ben, "that we should like to know more about him."