d the shooting were damned lucky," Stonehenge took
over. "Hickock's a big rancher. I don't know how much you know about
supercow-ranching, sir, but those things have to be herded with tanks
and light aircraft, so that every rancher has at his disposal a fairly
good small air-armor combat team. Naturally, all the big ranchers are
colonels in the Armed Reserve. Hickock has about fifteen fast fighters,
and thirty medium tanks armed with fifty-mm guns. He also has some
AA-guns around his ranch house--every once in a while, these ranchers
get to squabbling among themselves.

"Well, these three Bonney brothers were just turning away when a burst
from the ranch house caught their jet assembly, and they could only get
as far as Bonneyville, thirty miles away, before they had to land. They
landed right in front of the town jail.

"This Bonneyville's an awful shantytown; everybody in it is related to
everybody else. The mayor, for instance, Kettle-Belly Sam Bonney, is an
uncle of theirs.

"These three boys--Switchblade Joe Bonney, Jack-High Abe Bonney and
Turkey-Buzzard Tom Bonney--immediately claimed sanctuary in the jail, on
the grounds that they had been near to--get that; I think that indicates
the line they're going to take at the trial--_near_ to a political
assassination. They were immediately given the protection of the jail,
which is about the only well-constructed building in the place,
practically a fort."

"You think that was planned in advance?" I asked.

Parros nodded emphatically. "I do. There was a hell of a big gang of
these Bonneys at the jail, almost the entire able-bodied population of
the place. As soon as Switchblade and Jack-High and Turkey-Buzzard
landed, they were rushed inside and all the doors barred. About three
minutes later, the Hickock outfit started coming in, first aircraft and
then armor. They gave that town a regular Georgie Patton style
blitzing."

"Yes. I'm only sorry I wasn't there to see it," Stonehenge put in. "They
knocked down or burned most of the shanties, and then they went to work
on the jail. The aircraft began dumping these firebombs and stun-bombs
that they use to stop supercow stampedes, and the tank-guns began to
punch holes in the walls. As soon as Kettle-Belly saw what he had on his
hands, he radioed a call for Ranger protection. Our friend Captain
Nelson went out to see what the trouble was."

"Yes. I got the story of that from Nelson," Parros put in. "Much as he
hate