Bert Wilson in the Rockies | Page 7

this section for years. A good many people will breathe easier now that
they're trapped. They're 'bad men' through and through, and if their
pistol butts had a notch on them for every man they've killed, they'd
look like saws. And with nothing but a paperweight and bare fists," he
chuckled. "They sure must feel sore. What was done with them?"
"Oh, the conductor handed them over to the sheriff at one of the
stations," answered Bert. "I suppose they'll be tried before long."
"Maybe," said Melton a little dubiously. "My own private hunch,
though, is that Judge Lynch will invite them to a little necktie party.
They've lived a heap sight too long already, and there won't be much
formality wasted on them.
"You boys sure have the nerve," he went on. "You got away with it all
right, but you took an awful chance."
"Yes," quoted Dick:
'An inch to the left or an inch to the right, And we wouldn't be
maundering here to-night.'"

"Those born to be hung will never be shot," laughed Tom. "I guess that
explains our escape so far."
"It beats the Dutch the faculty you fellows have of getting into scrapes
and out again," commented Melton. "I believe you'd smell a scrap a
mile away. You'd rather fight than eat."
"You won't think so when you see what we'll do to that supper of yours
to-night," retorted Tom. "Gee, but this air does give you an appetite."
"The one thing above all others that Tom doesn't need," chaffed Dick.
"But he's right, just the same. The way I feel I could make a wolf look
like thirty cents."
"You can't scare me with that kind of talk," challenged Melton. "Let out
your belts to the last notch and I'll guarantee they'll be tight when you
get up from the table."
"That listens good," said Tom. "I'm perfectly willing you should call
my bluff."
With jest and laughter the afternoon wore on and the shadows cast by
the declining sun began to lengthen. After their long confinement on
the train, the boys felt as though they had been released from prison.
They had been so accustomed to a free, unfettered life that they had
chafed at the three days' detention, where the only chance they had to
stretch their limbs had been afforded by the few minutes wait at
stations. Now they enjoyed to the full the sense of release that came to
them in their new surroundings. The West, as seen from a car window,
was a vastly different thing when viewed from the seat of a buckboard
going at a spanking gait over the limitless plains.
For that they were limitless was the impression conveyed by the
unbroken skyline that seemed to be a thousand miles away. Only in the
northwest did mountains loom. They had never before had such an
impression of the immensity of space. It seemed as though the whole
expanse had been created for them, and them alone. For many miles
they saw no human figure except that of a solitary cowboy, who passed

them at a gallop on his way to the town. The country was slightly
rolling and richly grassed, affording pasturage for thousands of cattle
that roamed over it at will, almost as free as though in a wild state,
except at the time of the round-up. They crossed numerous small rivers,
none so deep that they could not be forded, although in one case the
water flowed over the body of the wagon.
"That's the Little Big Horn River," said Melton as they drew out on the
other side. "Perhaps you fellows remember something that happened
here a good many years ago."
"What," cried Bert. "You don't mean the Custer Massacre?"
"That's what," returned Melton. "Right over there where the river bends
was the place where Sitting Bull was encamped when Custer led the
charge on that June morning. I've got to breathe the horses for twenty
minutes or so, and, if you like, we'll look over the field."
If they would like! The boys thrilled at the thought. They had read
again and again of that gallant and hopeless fight, where a thousand
American cavalrymen led by Custer, the idol of the army, had attacked
nine thousand Indians, and fighting against these fearful odds had been
wiped out to the last man. In all the nation's history no one, except
perhaps Phil Sheridan and Stonewall Jackson, had so appealed to the
imagination of the country's youth as Custer, the reckless,
yellow-haired leader in a hundred fights, the hero of Cedar Creek and
Waynesboro and Five Forks, the Chevalier Bayard of modern times,
"without fear and without reproach," who met his death at last as he
would have wished to meet it, in that mad