"Oh, you think they ain't so bad, eh?" broke in Isham intolerantly. "Well, let me tell you a few things about the Bassetts. They're a cross between a horsethief and a Digger Injun squaw, and they's more than one man that's dropped suddenly out of sight while he was riding across their range. They're the most treacherous dastards that ever was born and them that knows 'em best trusts 'em least. They're jest naturally bad with a yaller stripe down their belly as broad as the flat of your hand. They'll do everything but _fight_, and you can't crowd 'em to it--not if you call 'em every name you can lay your tongue to. And they're the orneriest-looking rascals that a white man ever seen--like an Injun, but black as niggers. You ain't going to throw in with an outfit like that--and call yourself a Southerner?" "Whoever said I was going to throw in with them?" demanded Hall with outraged dignity. "Haven't I told you distinctly that I am just going through the country and that I don't give _that_ for your quarrels?" "Yes, you've told me," retorted Isham, "but perhaps I don't believe you. I wasn't born yesterday, and if you don't want to join them why do you object to going in with Meshackatee?" "I _don't_ object!" replied the prisoner tartly, "and if that's a condition I agree to it. But since my word of honor means nothing to you gentlemen I must ask permission to withdraw it." "W'y, sure!" mocked Isham, bowing low and with a smirk. "By grab, boys; we've sure caught a preacher." "Nope, he ain't no preacher," corrected Meshackatee grimly. "And say, if we're going, let's start." "Take him over to the Rock House, then," ordered Isham gruffly, "and don't let him git away." "Very well, sir," answered Meshackatee, and with a half-mocking salute he led his prisoner away. They were well up the trail before either of them spoke and then Meshackatee broke the silence. "I'll take your word of honor," he said, "that you won't try to quit me on the trail. They'll hold me responsible, now." "You have it," replied Hall at length, "but I must say I'm surprised to find a man like you in the company of such unprincipled hounds." "Oh, they ain't so bad," responded Meshackatee cheerfully, "except when Isham runs off at the head. He makes more enemies by shooting off his mouth than he can hire gunmen at ten dollars a day. That's me, you understand--I'm a hired bravo, as they call us in the _Geronimo Blade_--but when a man buys my services he doesn't buy _me_, and I think what I dad-blamed please." "Well, what do you think, then, of the Scarboroughs' methods of holding up strangers on the trail? I've seen some rough work but the way they treated me made the blood fairly boil in my veins!" "It sure makes 'em sore," observed Meshackatee philosophically, "to be roped that way at the spring. And that hangman's knot and all, it's downright insulting--a man never quite gits over it."