Across his shoulder
lay a rifle with a barrel of unusual length.
"Never saw any of them before," said the Panther. "By the great horn
spoon, who can that feller in front be? He looks like somebody."
The little band rode closer, and its leader held up his hand as a sign
of amity.
"Good friends," he said, in a deep clear voice, "we don't have very
close neighbors out here, and that makes a meeting all the pleasanter.
You are Texans, I guess."
"You guess right," said the Panther, in the same friendly tone. "An' are
you Texans, too?"
"That point might be debated," replied the man, in a whimsical tone,
"and after a long dispute neither I nor my partners here could say which
was right and which was wrong. But while we may not be Texans, yet we
will be right away."
His eyes twinkled as he spoke, and Ned suddenly felt a strong liking for
him. He was not young and, despite his buckskin dress and careless
grammar, there was something of the man of the world about him. But he
seemed to have a certain boyishness of spirit that appealed strongly to
Ned.
"I s'pose," he continued, "that a baptism will make us genuine Texans,
an' it 'pears likely to me that we'll get that most lastin' of all
baptisms, a baptism of fire.
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