tus carried him along,
he held Vic Gregg with his hazy eyes.

"But they didn't all finish like Plummer, not all the bad ones. No
sirree! There was Boone Helm."

"I've heard about him," growled Vic, but the old man had fixed his
glance and his reminiscent smile upon the past and his voice was soft
with distance when he spoke again.

"Helm was a sure enough bad one, son. They don't grow like him no more.
Wild Bill was a baby compared with Helm, and Slade wasn't no man at all,
even leavin' in the lies they tell about him. Why, son, Helm was just a
lobo, in the skin of a man--"

"Like Barry?" put in Lorrimer, drifting closer down the bar.

"Who's he?"

"Ain't you heard of Whistlin' Dan? The one that killed Jim Silent and
busted up his gang. Why, they say he's got a wolf that he can talk to
like it was a man."

Old Lew chuckled.

"They say a lot of things," he nodded, "but I'll tell a man that a wolf
is a wolf and they ain't nothin' that can tame 'em. Don't you let 'em
feed you up on lies like that, Lorrimer. But Helm was sure bad. He
killed for the sake of killin', but he died game. When the boys run him
down he swore on the bible that he's never killed a man, and they made
him swear it over again just to watch his nerve; but he never batted an
eye."

The picture of that wild time grew up for Vic Gregg, and the thought of
free men who laughed at the law, strong men, fierce men. What would one
of these have done if the girl he intended to marry had treated him like
a foil?

"Then they got him ready for the rope," went on Lew Perkins.

"'I've seen a tolerable lot of death,' says Helm. 'I ain't afraid of
it.'"

"There was about six thousand folks had come in to see the end of Boone
Helm. Somebody asked him if he wanted anything.

"'Whisky,' says Boone. And he got it.

"Then he shook his hand and held it up. He had a sore finger and it
bothered him a lot more than the thought of hangin'.

"'You gents get through with this or else tie up my finger,' he kept
sayin'."

"Helm wasn't the whole show. There was some others bein' hung that day
and when one of them dropped off his box, Boone says: 'There's one gone
to hell.' Pretty soon another went, and hung there wiggling, and six
times he went through all the motions of pullin' his six-shooter and
firin' it. I counted. 'Kick away, old fellow,' says Boone Helm, 'I'll be
with you soon.' Then it came his turn and he hollered: 'Hurrah for Jeff
Davis; let her rip!'