y--were picked
out, for there was no one else in the family except a younger brother of
eighteen, who has since died. 'Bud' Ryder and Jim Kelso were the other
two--both good on horses and handy with a gun.

"'Cap' was proud of his posse when he finally got us together. The
Thomases came out and joined us like bees a-swarming. The young fellow
was all up in the air with excitement, like a boy going to a circus. He
was so brash that at first we couldn't keep him from riding on ahead of
the rest of us; you'd think he wanted to bring in the bunch all by
himself.

"That was all right; brash, eager young fellows ain't always so brave
when trouble begins, but they steady into good fighters. It's hard
enough to get 'em that want to go after a man like 'Cap' Queen at all."

Brunner told me then of the fight in the woods at daybreak. It was his
summary of young Henry Thomas that interested me.

One of the men whom White took from Red Oak led the posse to the camp on
Pryor Creek. It was on a ledge on a hillside. The fires had been built
under a jutting rock. Only a bush wren could have hidden its nest more
completely--Bruce had been lucky in spying it out. He told White that
there was but one unprotected approach--a long unused trail that led
down from the cliff-top and ended in a briar tangle fifty feet above the
ledge. That trail, it was evident, 'Kep' Queen did not know existed.

Young Thomas had ridden with Brunner, seeking him out, as the novice
always seeks out the veteran, to practise his valorous speeches upon.
For four hours young Thomas talked about bravery, with illustrations.
From one incident to another he skipped, for the history of outlawry
west of St. Louis, in the last generation, was more familiar to him than
many another topic he had gathered from books. Brunner could have set
him right on the facts many times, but what was the use?

After a time the youngster's monologue became a sort of soothing hum,
for which the other was grateful. "I was cross and sleepy and chilly and
nervous," Brunner explained, "and the boy's gabble rested me."

I gathered that the young man was more excited than he cared to confess,
even to himself. He talked, as others whistle, to "keep up his courage."
Yet the implication that he needed distraction or stimulation would have
angered him. Youth and courage are twins, or should be, and a man of
twenty-two takes it for granted. At forty, a man may confess to turning
tail and yet sa