At the third attempt he blurted:
"Lawler, Antrim's gang has cleaned up the Circle L! Damn their sneakin',
dirty hides! They've run off our cattle--takin' 'em through Kinney's
canon! They've wiped out the Circle L outfit! Blackburn's
left--Blackburn an' three more poor fellows they plugged, an' didn't
finish!
"Blackburn made me ride for help--damn him, anyway, Lawler! I wanted to
stay with the bunch!" Shorty's voice broke; his lips quivered; his voice
rose to a screech of impotent, awful rage. Brokenly, he told Lawler what
had happened after the stampeding of the cattle by Antrim's men. He
related, in tumbling, rapid, quavering sentences, how he had got the
help Blackburn had sent him for--Caldwell's outfit--with the exception
of two men who had been sent in different directions to other ranches.
And how, later in the morning, he had returned to the shallow gulley on
the plains where he had left Blackburn and the others, to find most of
them dead. Blackburn and three more had been wounded, but had survived.
"Fifteen men, Lawler!" raged Shorty; "fifteen men wiped out by that
miserable gang of coyotes! But damn them!" he added with a fierce,
savage joy; "they didn't get away without payin' toll, either! There's
twenty of them layin' out there, Lawler--twenty of them for the coyotes
to find.
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