They were chosen each from among literal hundreds, and they were cared
for far more tenderly than the masters cared for themselves. There was
a reason in it, for upon their speed and endurance depended the life
of the outlaw. Moreover, the policy of Jim Boone was one of actual
"long riding."
Here he had come to a pause for a few days to recuperate his horses
and his men. Tomorrow, perhaps, he would be on the spur again and
sweeping off to a distant point in the mountain-desert to strike and
be gone again before the rangers knew well that he had been there.
Very rarely did one settler have another neighbor at a distance of
less than two hundred miles. It meant arduous and continual riding,
and a horse with any defect was worse than useless because the speed
of the gang had to be the speed of the slowest horse in the lot.
It was some time before the two long riders had completed the grooming
of their horses and had gone down the hill and into the house. In the
largest habitable room they found a fire fed with rotten timbers from
the wrecked portion of the building, and scattered through the room a
sullen and dejected group: Mansie, Branch, Jim Boone, and Black
Morgan Gandil.
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