LAND WITH NO LAW

The hot July sun hammered down on the four riders as they slow-walked their mounts into the main street of Lofton, their shoulders slumped with weariness. Not a breath of wind stirred the manes of the scattering of horses hitched up and down the way, and dust raised by the plodding hooves hung listlessly in the dry air.

From the heat-dried adobes and the sun-darkened frame buildings, people moved out into the street to watch. This was a quiet afternoon, and the movement of the riders was quick to catch the eye. People saw the four horsemen first, and then their gaze dropped back to the fifth horse. It carried on its back a slack bundle wrapped in a dusty woolen blanket. The riders drew rein in front of the sheriff’s office. One of them stepped down stiffly, so tired that it seemed he would fall to the ground. He turned back to the man behind him, and only then did it become apparent that this man’s wrists were in handcuffs.

“All right, Nichols,” said the sheriff, “you can get down.”

Several men moved out hesitantly from the boardwalk and looked at the bundle on the fifth horse. One of them asked worriedly, “Who is it, Mark? Who did they get?”

Sheriff Mark Truitt took a deep breath and leaned heavily against a hitching rail. His blue eyes were bloodshot from endless hours of riding without sleep, and from the bite of alkali. His face, although young, looked old now through a matting of black whiskers, grayed by a powdering of dust.

“Chip Tony,” he said after a long moment. “They got Chip Tony.”

The sheriff’s smarting eyes moved along the rapidly gathering crowd and picked out a young cowboy. “Harley, I wish you’d go find Will Tony. Better take somebody with you, and break it easy. His sun rose and set on that brother of his.”

Another man took the reins of the led horse and asked gravely, “Want me to take care of Chip for you, Mark?”

The sheriff nodded, and there was pain in his voice. “I wish you would.”

He looked then to the two weary men who still sat their horses. “Homer, you and Joe put the horses up, then go get some sleep. I can handle it from here.”

They nodded. One of them pulled his horse back. The other hesitated a moment. “Mark, get Doc Workman to look at your head. That’s a bad lick you got there.”

“I’ll be all right. You go get some rest.”

Mark Truitt caught his prisoner’s arm and motioned him toward the door of the combination office and jail. The prisoner, an unshaven cowboy in his midtwenties, took a long look at the gathering crowd. Fear chilled his eyes.

There was no one in any of the three jail cells, not even a drunk sleeping one off. Truitt found one of the cell doors half open. He unlocked the handcuffs and motioned Nichols into the cell. He locked the heavy barred door with a key from his desk, then turned back toward the front porch.

More men were gathering, and soon there was a large crowd out front. Truitt knew he owed them some kind of explanation. He took off his hat and pitched it back against the wall. He stood in the doorway, one hand braced on the jamb to help steady himself against his bone-weariness.

“We didn’t have any trouble finding the trail of the stolen cattle,” he said. “We followed them south, into the brush. The thieves were getting close to the river, and we had to jump them quick or they’d be across the border. We thought we had them, but somehow everything just seemed to go wrong.

“They killed Chip, and they shot the horse from under me. We got one of them”—he nodded back toward the cell—“when Homer Brill shot his horse and it fell and pinned him down. We had to let the rest of them go. There was nothing else we could do.”

An angry hum of conversation lifted to him as the crowd talked it out. Someone asked, “It was the Rankin brothers, wasn’t it?”

Mark Truitt nodded. “Yes, it was the Rankins. We saw them—Edsel and Floyd both.”

Some of the men slowly began to disperse then, but many of them stayed there, talking and gesturing sharply among themselves. Truitt caught the angry tone of the talk. He knew some of it was aimed at him.

“He got a good man killed, and he didn’t even catch those cow thieves,” he heard some say. “It’s sure time for a new sheriff, I’m telling you.”

“There’ll be one,” someone replied hotly, making sure he was loud enough for Truitt to hear. “Wait till the election’s over tomorrow.”

Mark Truitt hadn’t thought about the election in two days. Now it came back to him. Turning, he saw the placard some nervy soul had tacked beside Truitt’s own door: “Elect Dalton Krisman Sheriff.” He let it stay there.

Truitt moved back into his office. He wanted to drop into the big chair at the desk, but he didn’t allow himself that yet. He reached into a drawer at the bottom and took out a bottle and glass. He didn’t use liquor much, but once in a while he felt the need of it.

He downed a stiff drink and then set the glass and bottle on his desk. He walked across to the washstand and poured the basin full from the tin pitcher. He splashed cool water over his dirty, bewhiskered face, rubbing hard with a wet rag to get some of the dirt off. Funny, he thought, how much it helped relieve a man’s weariness just to wash his face. He was careful how he used the wet rag against the side of his head. An angry red place still remained where his head had struck the ground as his horse went down. It was tender to the touch, and it throbbed without letup.

Finished, he turned and found two men waiting. They were both cowmen. One was well into middle age, the other one not far from it. Both were gray from a life of hard work and worry.

“Mark,” said old Sam Vernon, “we just heard. Is there anything we can do?”

The sheriff shook his head. “There’s nothing anybody can do now, Sam. We’ve lost Chip Tony, and one cow thief isn’t much trade for a kid like Chip.”

He glanced at the other man. “We didn’t even get your cattle back, Luke.” Luke Merchant was a wagon boss of the big LS outfit. He had been a Ranger once. Merchant’s eyes kindled as he looked back into the cell where the prisoner sat, with his head in his hands.

“I wouldn’t have brought him back alive.”

Truitt eyed him evenly. “Yes you would, Luke.”

The wagon boss dropped his gaze and made futile, angry gesture with his hands. “Yeah, I reckon I would.” That was why he had quit the Rangers. He had come to hate guns and violence with a passion that a man can develop only after he has been through the hell of battle.

Sam Vernon added, “Bad break, Mark. Mighty bad. It looked for a while as if you weren’t even going to get back for the election.”

Truitt shrugged. “It might’ve been better if I hadn’t.”

“Krisman’s really been making the rounds while you’ve been gone, Mark. The things he’s been saying—and people are listening to him. It looks bad.”

Truitt eased down into the chair and looked hopelessly at the papers piled up on the rolltop desk, papers and letters that needed attention he hadn’t been able to give them. He rubbed his hand across his eyes, trying to ease the burning in them and knowing he couldn’t. He wished they’d talk about something else besides the election. He was too tired to care about it, one way or the other.

“It was kind of a joke when Krisman first announced he was running for office,” said Luke Merchant. “He never made much of a go of anything in his life; he just talked loud. I never took him seriously.”

“We’ve got to take him seriously now,” Sam Vernon declared. “He has folks uneasy and beginning to want a change. Sometimes they’ll make a big mistake, Mark, just because they get anxious for a new deal.”

Truitt shrugged. “I’m too worn out to care. If they want Krisman in, they’re welcome to him.”

Sam Vernon argued, “He’s not sheriff material, Mark. In the first little crisis he’ll break to pieces. The Rankin boys would eat us up.”

Truitt said bleakly, “Looks as if they’re doing it now.”

“You’ll get them, Mark, if folks’ll give you time. You’ve crowded them plenty. Without you they’d have been a lot worse. But if Krisman wins, it’ll be an open invitation to them. The only thing that could stop them then would be vigilantes, and we don’t want any of that.”

All Mark wanted right now was to go in the back room, throw himself across the cot, and not wake up for a week. But he wondered if he could sleep, if the picture of Chip Tony’s broken body wouldn’t keep coming back to him.

“What’re you going to do, Mark?” Sam Vernon pressed him. “Are you going to get out there and work for the vote?”

Truitt shook his head. “I’m going out there tomorrow and try to find somebody to go with me after the Rankins again.”

Sam’s eyes were black. “Then you’ll lose, Mark. And the Rankins’ll be rid of you.”

A girl stood in the doorway, a tall, pretty girl with worry in her blue eyes. “Mark,” she said in a strained voice, “are you all right?”

He looked at Betty Mulvane, and for a moment he couldn’t speak. How much he had thought of her these last few days! He wanted to reach out to her and hold her close, but he couldn’t with these men here to watch.

So he said simply, “I’m all right, Betty.” He knew she understood everything else he wanted to say.

She took a step forward, conscious of the other two men but looking only at Mark. “They said you were wounded.”

“Just a lick on the head. It doesn’t amount to anything.”

They stood looking at each other and Betty’s eyes were soft. “T.C. said I should tell you he’ll be over in a minute to watch the jail for you. Don’t you want to come and eat?”

He shook his head. “Later, maybe. Right now I’m too tired to eat.”

She nodded, her voice gentle. “All right, Mark. It’ll be there, whenever you’re ready.”

He heard the clump of feet on the boardwalk and looked past Betty toward the door. Dalton Krisman marched in. Five or six others followed him. Krisman was a large man, good-looking in his way, still a few years shy of middle age.

He was a little soft, for he seldom did much hard work. He always dressed neatly, without ever quite overdoing it to the point that people would scoff at him behind his back. He could even be a likeable sort when he wanted to be. Right now he wasn’t trying to make Mark Truitt like him.

Krisman took off his new hat and bowed toward Betty Mulvane. “Hello, Betty. I should have known you would be here.”

She colored, for it was hard to know just how Krisman meant it.

Krisman turned then to Mark. “I understand you’ve failed again, Mark.” His voice was loud enough to carry to anyone who might be listening outside.

Mark Truitt eyed his opponent warily, knowing Krisman was playing this for political advantage but not knowing exactly what he could do about it.

“We didn’t get the cattle back,” Truitt conceded.

Krisman’s voice sharpened. “Edsel and Floyd Rankin are still at large with a hundred and fifty head of LS cattle, and the blood of Chip Tony on their hands.”

“We got one of their men,” Truitt said stubbornly.

“Some cheap outlaw,” Krisman said, glancing back to the cell. “Some worthless cowboy gone bad. The Rankins can find another just like him and not lose a day. One cheap outlaw to make up for the loss of a fine young man like Chip Tony? You’ve made a sorry mess of this, Mark Truitt.”

Krisman was standing near the desk. He picked up the bottle and held it high, making a show of reading the label. He didn’t say anything about it, but his inference was plain enough.

Truitt knew Krisman was deliberately baiting him in front of these men, but he couldn’t prevent the flush of heat in his face. “You never had any use for Chip Tony while he was alive, Krisman, and he never had any use for you. I won’t have you using his name in a cheap political move.”

“Maybe you’d like to tell us just what happened,” said Krisman.

Mark Truitt shook his head. It ached. It had ached ever since he had taken the fall. “Right now I’m tired, and I want to rest. I’ll give a full report on it later.”

He knew he was in no condition to stand up to Krisman’s sharp tongue. Krisman could cut him to pieces.

“I think we’re entitled to a report now. Here’s Scott Southall. He’s delayed publication of his paper a whole day to see what report you’d bring in. I think readers all over the county will be interested.”

The sheriff frowned, seeing the newspaper editor standing behind Krisman. Southall was a short, thin man who looked as if he would blow away in a good west wind. For some reason, Southall had never liked Truitt. Maybe it was because Truitt took people as they came, and he let them take him the same way.

He never was one to go out of his way to slap a man on the back and tell him a lot of things he didn’t mean, the way Krisman did. And Mark Truitt hadn’t spent much money in Southall’s paper, either, advertising his candidacy. He hadn’t had it to spend. But Krisman had.

Mark could visualize the story on the front page of Southall’s weekly if he didn’t take time now to tell what had happened:

“The sheriff refused to tell the people of Lofton County the details of the ill-starred chase after the notorious cattle thieves, the Rankin brothers, although candidate Krisman demanded such an explanation.”

Southall would make it strong.

Truitt shrugged futilely and sat down at his desk. “All right, I’ll tell you what happened. We trailed them south, deep into the brush. They had left a good trail. It didn’t seem as if they cared much. They were going fast anyway, and it wasn’t far to the river.

“We hoped they’d stop somewhere, and we could get them easy. Once they hit the river, there’d be nothing we could do, because they’d be over the border. Pretty soon we could tell they weren’t going to stop, and we had to get them the best way we could.

“Something went wrong—we never did know just what. We thought we’d surprise them, but when we made the run at them, we found they were ready. The first shot knocked my horse out from under me. The others went on. That’s when they killed Chip Tony.”

Dalton Krisman’s eyes widened with interest. “You mean, Truitt, that you weren’t even with your men when the boy was killed?”

“The fall stunned me. I couldn’t get up.”

Krisman had his chance now. He pounced on it like a cat on a mouse. “Couldn’t, Mark, or wouldn’t? Could it be that you didn’t want to, that it was the shooting that stunned you, not the fall? That you lay there, scared, and didn’t lift a finger to help the others?”

Betty Mulvane exclaimed, “Krisman, you’re a liar.”

Trembling with anger, Mark Truitt pushed to his feet and eased Betty aside.

“You know better than that, Krisman.”

“No,” said Krisman, “I don’t. It looks logical enough to me. You got yourself in a situation that was over your head, and you knew it. Even after your horse went down, you could have kept on shooting at the rustlers to help cover your men as they went in. But you didn’t, Mark. You panicked. You lay there and left them to their fate. You let Chip Tony die!”

Truitt’s fist came up so fast that Krisman never even saw it before it sent him reeling back into the thin arms of Scott Southall. The surprised editor couldn’t hold him. Krisman went down heavily. Rising up on an elbow, he shook his head and rubbed his jaw. There was triumph in his eyes, and a trace of a grin on his torn lip. He had done even better than had expected.

“Now you fight, Mark, now that there’s no one shooting at you. I won’t cheapen myself by brawling in here. I’ll do my fighting tomorrow, when the voters come in. And I’ll beat you, Mark Truitt.”

Scott Southall helped Krisman to his feet. Krisman staggered out the door, his hand on his jaw so anyone who was outside would know what had happened. Suddenly he was a martyr to truth.

Southall jotted rapid notes on a folded sheet of paper. Presently he looked up, plainly pleased. “Anything else you’d care to say for the readers, Sheriff?”

“Get out!”

The editor scampered out. Sobered, Truitt stared after him. Sam Vernon stood sadly behind him, saying nothing. Truitt was angry with himself. He knew he had given Krisman what he came for, and probably a lot more. He gritted something under his breath, then turned and walked into the back room. He flopped down across the cot and dropped off into a fitful sleep.

Some movement in the room finally awakened him. He raised his head and saw that it was dark. He had slept through the afternoon, and into the early evening. A match flared. Betty Mulvane stood with the lamp chimney in one hand, the match in the other. She lit the lamp and put the chimney back on. Then she turned the wick down to where there was no smoke.

“Hello, Mark. I brought you some supper.”

He swung his feet over the edge of the cot and sat up. His head still throbbed a bit, but was no longer as bad as it had been. “Thanks, Betty. I didn’t intend to sleep so long.”

The sleep had helped, though. He fingered his chin, feeling the scratch of whiskers and knowing he looked half outlaw.

“Don’t apologize,” she told him softly. “I don’t care if the whiskers are a foot long, just so you’re safe.”

She pointed to the tray she had set down on a small table. “Now you come on and eat something. You need it. I told T.C. to go along and have his supper, that I’d wake you up.”

He reached out, caught her hand, pulled her to him and kissed her.

She smiled and pulled back a little. “People are talking enough already.”

He felt a stir of resentment. “Not about you, I hope.”

She shrugged, keeping her smile even, though it somehow looked hollow. “When a single girl insists on staying in a town like this and running a cafe all by herself, feeding fifty men a day, they’re bound to talk a little, I guess. And when she’s seen so often in the company of the sheriff, and nothing is said about marriage, they’ll talk a little more.”

He clenched his fist. “They can say all they want to about me, Betty, but I won’t stand for their talking about you.”

“You can’t very well throw them all in jail, Mark.” She lost her smile then. “Sam Vernon didn’t exaggerate. They’re saying plenty about you, and it isn’t good.”

“Krisman?”

“He starts it, and it gets bigger as it goes along. The paper came out a while ago. Southall gave you both barrels.”

She handed him the paper. “I wasn’t going to give this to you till you’d finished your supper, but I guess you might as well read it.”

In one column was a story about the battle with the Rankin brothers. In the adjoining column was a story about the incident in the sheriff’s office. Truitt glanced at the large headlines.

SHERIFF A COWARD?

CANDIDATE KRISMAN CHARGES

TRUITT PANICKED, DID NOT FIGHT

SHERIFF ASSAULTS OPPONENT

Glancing down the story, he caught Betty Mulvane’s name. “One Betty Mulvane, proprietress of an eating establishment here and constant companion of Sheriff Truitt, hurled epithets at candidate Krisman.”

Truitt threw the paper down. He felt himself trapped. What he wanted more than anything else was to pick up both Krisman and Southall bodily and throw them in the creek. But he knew he couldn’t do it.

Betty said, “Don’t let it worry you. Southall will be in the cafe someday, and I’ll drop a little lye soap in his coffee.” She was smiling again, and she managed to coax a little smile from him. “Now eat your supper.”

Mark Truitt watched her as he ate supper and sipped his coffee. She was a pretty girl, and maybe that was what caused most of the talk, when you really came right down to it. When a girl looked like Betty Mulvane, it seemed as if folks just couldn’t leave her alone.

In the lamplight her hair seemed almost red, but in reality it was brown. She kept it combed back tightly and rolled up in a bun, so it was out of her way. Truitt had never seen her let it down, but he imagined it must reach nearly to her waist.

There was comfort in sitting here like this, close to Betty, not thinking for the moment about anything else, or anybody else. They were a pair, Mark Truitt and Betty Mulvane. Neither one had any family, any place they could really call home. Maybe that was why they had been drawn together in the beginning.

What she’d just mentioned, that nothing had been said about marriage, had set him thinking. He’d done a lot of thinking about it of late. He had meant to ask her—had really wanted to ask her—but he didn’t have much to offer. The only things of value he owned were two saddle horses and a gold watch. He had a little money in the bank, but it wouldn’t go far in setting up a business. Or in setting up housekeeping, for that matter.

He didn’t want to ask her until he had something to show. And from the way things were going, that might be an awfully long time. There was something else, too—the Rankin brothers. Until they were out of the way, he did not know what might happen, when he might ride out and not come back. He didn’t want to leave a wife behind to the agony of a wait that would never end.

T.C. stepped in through the front door and went on to the back room. Rail thin and getting along in years, he limped heavily. Rheumatism had knocked him out of a saddle job and set him afoot, and now about all he could do was tend the jail.

Now T.C. was excited. “Mark,” he said, “some of the boys down at the Big Chance are getting likkered up. There’s talk of taking your prisoner out and hanging him.”

“Serious talk?”

“Drunk talk. It could get serious.”

Mark frowned. “Who’s in on it?”

“Some of the cowboys. Most of them are friends of Chip Tony’s, or Will’s.”

“Is Will Tony over there?”

T.C. nodded. “He’s sitting in a corner by himself. He’s been there all evening, they say, drinking alone. He wasn’t taking part in the lynch talk, as far as I could tell. But he’s a man who can pack a lot of hate. I reckon that if they came he’d come with them.”

Mark Truitt stood up, reached for his gun belt, and buckled it on. “You’d better get along. Betty. I’m going over to try to clamp the lid on it. If I don’t get it done, this won’t be any place for you.”

“Mark,” she said anxiously, “don’t take any chances. He’s not worth it.”

“He’s my prisoner. If he were Edsel Rankin himself, it would be my duty to protect him.”

He unlocked the gun case and checked the rifles there. The best thing in a situation like this was a good shotgun, and there were two in the case. He broke them open to make sure they were loaded.

“Grab you one of these, T.C., and keep it in your hands. Stay just inside the front door. The other one’s for me, if I come back needing it.”

T.C. gulped. “Think you will, Mark?”

“I hope not. I’m going to try to stop it right where it’s started.”

He cast a quick glance at the prisoner. Nichols was pretty much an ordinary cowboy, in appearance. There was nothing about him to stamp him as an outlaw, the way there was with some of them. He probably was just a weak-willed man who had wandered into outlawry with empty pockets and had stayed at it because he got spoiled by the easy money.

Nichols was watching them, his face drawn with worry.

“I’ll do what I can,” Mark told him.

Nichols’s voice was shaky. “Damn the Rankins, anyway. They could have come back and gotten me. They just let me lie there and get caught. It’s them these fellers really want to hang, not me.”

Mark Truitt could hear the angry voices before he got to the wide-open front door of the Big Chance Bar. They were loud voices, calling for the blood of the outlaw in the jail, the one who had helped kill Chip Tony.

It was the liquor talking, the sheriff knew. Deep down, the men wanted to do it, but there was something—maybe fear, maybe guilt—that held them back. So they went to the bottle to drown that fear, or that guilt. Now they were getting dangerous, for their half drunkenness left nothing to hold them back.

Mark Truitt stopped just inside the door. One by one, men saw him, and the sharp talk frazzled out to silence. Truitt studied the faces, trying to decide who the leaders were, whether any leaders had yet developed.

“I hear you boys are talking about taking my prisoner,” he said evenly. “That kind of talk will get you in trouble. I want it stopped.”

A belligerent cowboy with a freckled face took a step forward. “Maybe you think you can stop it.”

“I can, and I will. I’ll do it peacefully, if I can. If that won’t work, I’ll do it some other way. But I’ll do it.”

“There are too many of us here,” the freckled one said. “If we made a move, you wouldn’t try to stop us, any more than you tried to stop the Rankins when they killed Chip Tony.”

The cowboy began to edge forward. Mark Truitt knew that if this one hadn’t been a ringleader up to now, he had just declared himself one. “Stop it right there, Speck,” Mark said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re not going to hurt me, Sheriff. You’re yellow. You lay down on Chip. You won’t try to stop me.”

He kept coming, his shoulders hunched. He was drunk and angry. He was going to knock Truitt aside to show the others he could. He never got the chance. Mark Truitt’s hand blurred upward, his six-shooter in it. With a solid thump, the barrel struck the cowboy’s head. Speck sank like a sack of oats. The men gasped in surprise.

“There’s not going to be any lynching,” Mark said again, his voice firm. “If anybody else thinks he can walk over me, now’s the time to try.”

An angry murmur moved through the men, but they stayed still. Truitt glanced at Will Tony, who sat by himself at a table in the corner, just as T.C. had said.

“How about it, Will? You’re not in on this, I hope.”

Will Tony stared at him without answering, and Mark could read nothing in his eyes.

The freckled cowboy stirred. Mark Truitt gripped him under the armpits, helping him to his feet. “Come on, Speck,” he said. “You’ve got a bed for the night. And there’s one waiting for anybody else who wants to try anything against my prisoner.”

He didn’t think there would be, now. He thought he’d scotched the thing for good. But to help be sure, and in an effort to bring some reason into the men, he added, “In the first place, it’s my duty by law to protect my prisoner. In the second place, he’s not a Rankin. I doubt that he’s even a very good cow thief. But it may be that I can get him to talk. If I get lucky enough, he might even lead me to the Rankins. He sure can’t be any help hanging from a limb. Now think it over, and break this up.”

He turned to the bartender. “Frank, I think you’d better close for the night.”

Frank nodded solemnly. Truitt thought the barman was relieved.

T.C. stood in the door of the office as Truitt came back, supporting the sagging Speck. He said nothing, but his eyes were wide as he opened the door, then looked back down the street to make sure Truitt wasn’t being followed. The prisoner, Claude Nichols, stood in the cell, gripping the iron bars nervously.

“You can relax,” Truitt told him. “It’s over with. This is the headman of your reception committee.”

Nichols eased and breathed a long sigh. He dropped back onto his bunk, trembling a little. He ran his hands across his face. His color was gone.

“Thanks, Sheriff,” he said presently. “One thing about you, you stood up for me. The Rankins ran off and left me.”

“It’s not all for nothing, Nichols. I’ve been hoping you’d lead me to the Rankins.”

Nichols stared at him, then shook his head. “Not in a million years.”

“I’ll make a deal with you. Lead me there and I’ll turn you loose.”

Nichols thought a little; then he shook his head again. “No trade, Sheriff. I couldn’t run far enough to hide from them.”

With Speck locked up, Truitt pitched the keys on the desk and sat down heavily in his chair. He kept remembering the way Will Tony had looked at him. They had been friends for a long time, he and Will. They had ridden together, hunted together, worked together on some of the cow outfits before Truitt became sheriff.

He wondered if Will Tony believed the stories Krisman was putting out. The thought bothered him.

The polls opened at eight o’clock. There was already a good stirring of people by then. By midmorning families were arriving from points far out in the country, the men to vote, the women and children to visit and buy provisions. There were other county offices on the ballot, but there was little competition for them. Only the sheriff’s race stirred any talk.

By law, Mark Truitt could have closed all the saloons on election day. But he didn’t want to. For the men of this country, the saloon was more than just a place to get a drink. It was a social center, a place to sit and talk with friends, just about the only place there was to pass time. So Mark let the saloons stay open, with the one restriction that they couldn’t sell liquor until after the polls closed.

Wherever he went, he felt the eyes of the bystanders following him. Sometimes he could hear men talking low after he passed by. He could feel the growing hostility.

He walked past Southall’s newspaper office. Scott Southall stood in the doorway, enjoying the coolness of the morning before the onset of the day’s heat. At sight of Truitt, however, he turned back into the shop and busied himself at tearing down the type that had been set up for yesterday’s paper.

Mark paused, watching him through the open doorway, wishing there were some way to even up with him for those snide lines about Betty. But he couldn’t touch the little printer, and he knew it.

Even though sales were cut off, there was no shortage of liquor. Men knew enough to bring their own on election day. They gathered in the saloons, or along sidewalks on the shaded side of the street, or under the cottonwoods down at the creek, playing cards, drinking, telling windies and waiting for the votes to be counted. As long as things didn’t get out of hand, Truitt left people alone.

At noon Betty Mulvane had all the crowd she could handle in her cafe. Expecting this ahead of time, she had cooked up two huge roasts, which made for faster serving. Betty and a Mexican girl who helped her were running their legs off, getting the crowd fed.

Betty gave Mark a special smile, but that was the only preferential treatment she had time for. Later, as he passed by again, she motioned him in. The place was finally empty.

“There are still some biscuits left, and I brought some wild plum jelly out of the cellar after the crowd was gone. Still hungry?”

He shook his head. “I could use some coffee, though.”

He toyed with the spoon in the cup, wanting talk more than anything else. “You’ve probably heard as much talk from as many people as anybody in town, Betty. What’re they saying?”

Her eyes were troubled. “It isn’t good, Mark. You’ve still got friends, but lots of folks are turning in the other direction. They’re stirred up over the Rankins; you haven’t caught those two yet. Then there’s that story in the paper, and the things Dalton Krisman is saying. I’ve even noticed them looking at me a little oddly, Mark. I’m hurting your chances.”

“Don’t say that, Betty.”

She shrugged. “It’s the truth, though. If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a dozen times today. ‘Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,’ they say.”

Mark sipped his coffee, his eyes narrowed in thought. So Krisman was going to win the election. And he was dragging Betty down to do it.

Somehow Mark had known yesterday that he was going to lose, but he had been too tired to care. Now rested and thinking clearly, he could understand better what Sam Vernon and Luke Merchant had been driving at. Krisman could make a good speech, but he would never in a hundred years make a good sheriff. Talk was all there was to him. The people of Lofton County would be more vulnerable to the Rankins and their kind than they had ever been before.

The Rankins were a hard pair. Edsel, the older, was cold and scheming, as dangerous as a javelina boar. Floyd, the red-haired younger brother, was wild and daring and as ruthless as they came.

These two weren’t like some cowboys who went wrong because of a grievance, or just because of a search for easy money. They had grown up at outlawry, had been taught thievery and violence like other boys are taught reading and writing and arithmetic. Their father had been a cow and horse thief before them, an early day wolf poisoner who had been left over when the times moved on. Mark Truitt had seen the old man once, before somebody finally killed him. Old Harper Rankin had what the early cowmen called the “coyote eye.”

And it had been his legacy to his two sons. They’d preyed on this country in a two-bit way for ten years, mavericking a little, or stealing ten or fifteen head and making off with them, when they could get away with it. The boys grew up learning how to work a running iron in one hand while holding a rifle in the other.

They hadn’t really cut loose the wolf, though, until about two years ago. A Lofton County ranchman had caught Harper Rankin with twenty good young heifers, heading in the wrong direction in too much of a hurry. When the smoke cleared, Harper Rankin lay dead.

Three nights later the Rankin boys had ridden up to the rancher’s house and cut the man to pieces with pistol fire, on his own front porch. They killed one of his Mexican cowboys for good measure.

Word eventually worked back that the boys had sworn to ruin every cowman in Lofton County before they were through. Working out of the thorny tangle of the brush country down south, they made periodic sorties into Lofton County, always getting a hundred to three hundred cattle at a time, and sometimes killing a cowboy or a rancher while doing it. Then they would jump back across the border into Mexico, taking the cattle with them into the huge country below.

Folks said old Harper had picked up many of the wolf’s habits while poisoning lobos back in the early times. Now he had passed them on to his sons, in spades. There would be no peace in Lofton County until the Rankin brothers were dead, or packed off to the penitentiary, never to return. But Dalton Krisman was not the man who could do it.

Most times, on election day there would be an impromptu horse race. Or somebody would bring in a mean horse or two, and there would be bets on whether one good rider or another could stay on him.

There was none of that today. The mood of the people was against it. Mark Truitt could sense the futile anger that grew in the crowd in town. It was impossible to vent that anger on the Rankins, even though they were the cause of it. So people began to look for something or someone else to take it, and Dalton Krisman was helping them find the man.

He was all over town, working like a ferret. By noon there was hardly a home where he had not at least stood on the front porch and talked with the people inside. He had been in every saloon, every store, half a dozen times.

He had been down along the creek bank where groups of ranchers, cowboys, and families whiled away time in the shade. He had been down in the Mexican end of town, where hardly anyone ever voted. Dalton Krisman wasn’t missing anybody.

Three o’clock came, and time for Chip Tony’s funeral. Mark Truitt put on the only suit he had and brushed the dust off his boots. He had hardly stirred out of the office since noon. Maybe he needed to get out a little more. Maybe, like some of his friends said, he was losing to Krisman by default.

It wasn’t Truitt’s way. He liked people, but not in bunches. And he hated trying to sell anyone something, even himself. He had always known he would make a poor drummer.

He went by the cafe and found Betty ready to go. “Are you sure we ought to go together?” she asked him.

“Let’s go,” he said.

It looked as if most of the county was there to see Chip Tony buried. Chip had been a likeable kid, and a mighty good cowhand. He had had a lot of friends. But many of these people hadn’t known him. They were here out of curiosity, and because this was about the only thing there was to do.

The funeral itself went off quietly enough.

There were a couple of hymns, and a short eulogy by the preacher. Betty Mulvane stood beside Mark. Once, when he felt his throat tighten and the tears come burning to his eyes, Betty gripped his arm a little, and it became easier for him. He looked down at her, grateful for her presence, wishing she could always be there.

He glanced several times toward Will Tony, wishing he knew what was running through the man’s mind. But Will never looked at him, so far as Mark could tell. Then he must believe what Krisman had been saying. Mark closed his eyes tight. The thought that Will Tony was against him hurt worst of all.

At last the funeral was over. Chip’s close friends filed by, each to shovel a bit of earth into the grave. Then came the explosion Mark had feared all day. He heard someone say, “It’s all over now for Chip, but they shot the wrong man. If they were going to kill somebody, it ought to’ve been the sheriff who went yellow and let the kid die.”

The voice was loud, purposely so, and the crowd which had been moving away from the cemetery stopped, waiting. Mark Truitt saw them all eyeing him curiously, waiting to see whether he would take it up or let it lie like that.

He looked behind him, searching for the man who had said it. He found him, a tall, bull-shouldered rider named Jase Duncan. Duncan had been with Krisman yesterday at the sheriff’s office. Now he stood a little in front of the crowd, letting Truitt know it was he who had spoken. Duncan was a poker-playing, beer-drinking friend of Dalton Krisman.

It was not hard to see where this trouble had come from, Truitt thought darkly. But he was in a squeeze, and there was no getting out. He walked toward Duncan with slow, determined steps. Two paces from him, he stopped and stood rigid.

“That’s a lie, Duncan. Jim and Homer were with us down there in the brush. They’ll tell you it’s not so.”

He wasn’t speaking for Duncan, because he knew Duncan probably didn’t care, one way or the other. He probably knew the truth, just as Krisman did. But he was willing to warp the truth if it suited his purpose. Jase Duncan loved to fight.

Jase said, “Jim and Homer are your friends. You had them deputized. They’d lie for you. For all we know, they may have held back, too.”

Truitt flinched. Jase had scored with that one. He had insulted Truitt’s friends. Now there could be no compromise. Any attempt at one would brand the sheriff a coward, sure enough.

“A cemetery is a place of peace,” Truitt said slowly. “We can’t fight in here.”

Jase Duncan grinned in anticipation. “It’s not far to the gate.”

He turned and walked toward the opening. Truitt followed after him, resignedly taking off his coat as he went. He hung it across the wooden gate, and placed his hat atop a post.

He looked back apologetically at Betty. Then he turned to face Duncan and found the man almost on him. Duncan’s fist bludgeoned into Truitt’s face, staggering the sheriff back against the gate.

Pain roared through Truitt’s head. For a second or two he saw only a whirling bright flash. Instinctively he dropped down. Duncan’s second blow struck him on the shoulder. Truitt came up with his own fist, still not seeing clearly, but knowing Duncan must be there.

His fist connected solidly. Duncan grunted. Truitt had hit him in the throat. For a moment, then, it was a standoff. Both men warily pulled back to recover and try again.

Mark Truitt hated fist fighting; he always had. He had seen a little boxing a time or two, and he wished he knew something about it, wished he knew how to spar and duck an opponent’s fists while at the same time making his own connect where they were intended to. But he didn’t. He had no style other than just to try to hit a little harder and a little faster than his opponent, and see if he could outlast him.

There was no style about Jase Duncan, either. He just came in swinging. If he happened to hit you just right, the fight was over, then and there.

This was a poor show, even a sordid one, two grown men standing there swapping licks, slowly, painfully, wearing each other down until neither could do more than stagger around, trying to get up strength for another swing.

Jase Duncan’s nose was bloody. One of his eyes was swelling shut. His breath was coming slow and hard, with a desperate rattle like that of a steer that had been roped around the neck and dragged too long.

Mark Truitt was little better off. His face was bruised and cut, and a smear of red edged across the ridge of his cheekbone. His shirt was half gone. It was all he could do to pull himself along, one step and then another, and try to get strength enough for one more good punch.

Jase Duncan finally went down and stayed down. It wasn’t so much that one man was a better fighter than the other, but simply that Mark Truitt had a little more stamina, had somehow outlasted him.

Truitt sank to the ground and leaned heavily back against the gate post, sweat and dirt and blood streaking his face as he opened his mouth wide and tried for a deep breath. Betty Mulvane knelt beside him, anxiously looking him over, her fingers gently searching his sore face.

“We’ve got to get back to town and take care of this,” she said.

The crowd began melting away, and some of its members looked ashamed. They’d had all of this show they wanted. Joe Franks and Homer Brill and some of Truitt’s other friends gathered around him. They didn’t say much; there wasn’t much to be said. But just having them here was worth a lot to Truitt.

Then Will Tony came up and stood looking down at him. Truitt couldn’t tell what he was thinking, for Will’s eyes were dark and grieving. Will Tony turned away and caught Dalton Krisman by the shoulder. Krisman had been kneeling by Duncan.

“Krisman,” he said bitterly, “I don’t want you ever to speak Chip’s name again. You’ve been using it, making it cheap, trying to get yourself into office with it. If you do it again, I’ll make you wish you’d never heard of Chip Tony!”

He gave Krisman a shove that landed the surprised candidate in the dirt.

Will Tony came back and stood by Mark Truitt again, his hands shoved deeply into his pockets. “They’re trying to cheapen you, Mark. And they’re cheapening Chip, too. I’m glad you fought Jase. It may not have helped you any, but it did me a world of good.”

Relief came to Mark Truitt then. He tried to stand up, but he couldn’t. He sank down again but lifted his hand to Will Tony. Will took it.

“I wish I’d hit that Jase Duncan a lick or two myself,” said short Joe Franks.

Homer Brill, tall and thin, said, “You’re so stubby you couldn’t have reached him with a four-foot elm club.”

“You’re so skinny you couldn’t even’ve picked the club up,” Joe shot back.

These two old friends were always sniping at each other. Mark knew that right now it was for his benefit, to cheer him up. As long as he had a few friends like these left, and Will Tony didn’t blame him, he could take whatever else came along.

“What’re we going to do now, Mark?” asked Homer Brill.

“There’s not much we can do,” Joe put in. “I got the word straight from one of the election judges a while ago. They’ve been sneaking a count. Krisman’s carrying.”

Mark Truitt nodded. He had expected nothing else.

Sam Vernon leaned on the fence and said sadly, “They’ll be swearing him in Monday morning, then, and we can give the country back to the Indians. The Rankins’ll take us.”

Mark Truitt pushed himself to his feet, holding to the gatepost. He had his breath back now, although a hammering pain had him worried at first that Duncan had cracked one of his ribs.

“I’m not quitting without one more try,” he said grimly. “I’m still the sheriff here tonight and all day tomorrow. I’m going back into that brush. This time I’m going over that river after them, border or no border.”

Betty was dismayed. “Mark, you can’t do that. You’re not in shape for it. Besides, they wouldn’t let you. Your term’s too nearly up. The judge wouldn’t allow you to go.”

“He won’t know till it’s too late to stop me. Once I get down into that brush, it won’t matter if I take a day or a week. Nobody will come there after me.”

“How’ll you know where to look for the Rankins?” asked Joe.

“By taking the prisoner along. One way or other, he’ll talk. He may not want to, but he’ll do it.”

Little Joe Franks stood up. “Well, sir, you’re not going without me.”

Homer Brill frowned. “If you’re going to take that kid along, I guess I’d better go, too, and help you nursemaid him.”

“Thanks, boys,” Mark said gratefully. “I hoped you would.”

Luke Merchant, the ex-Ranger, had been squatting, tracing cattle brands in the sand. He looked up. “It’s been a long time since I rode out on something like this. I quit the Rangers because I’d had a bellyful of it. But I didn’t throw my guns away, Mark. I can be a lot of use to you, if you’ll have me.”

Sam Vernon wanted to go, but Truitt had to turn him down. “You know why, Sam. Ten years ago, maybe, but not now. It’s going to be a long, hard trip. We can’t have any riders on our hands who might give out.”

“No,” Sam agreed reluctantly, “I reckon not. The best of luck to you.”

Will Tony had been standing, listening, saying nothing. Now he lifted his gaze to Mark Truitt. “Mark, I’m going too.”

Truitt looked at him dubiously. “Will, are you sure you want to—after Chip, I mean?”

Will Tony said firmly, “I’m going, Mark. If you don’t let me go with you, I’ll follow after you. I’m a good tracker, you know. I can even outshoot you. You’ll need me.”

Truitt nodded then. “I’ll be tickled to have you.”

He wound up with five men, all ones who would do to ride the river with. They were level-headed men he could trust to do what he wanted, to be where he needed them, when he needed them.

“We’ll travel light,” he said. “We’ll take a spare horse apiece the first part of the way, so we’ll have a fresh horse to change to. We’ll drop the extras off out at George Frisco’s ranch, this side of the river.

“Joe, you and Homer arrange for the horses over at Milt’s stable. Milt will keep his mouth shut. Remember two extra horses for Claude Nichols. Betty, I’ll let you get the grub because you can do it without anyone’s catching on. We’ll meet at your place after dark. We’ll eat a good meal there, and it may be the last we get for several days. We’ll travel all night so there won’t be anybody catching up with us and bringing us back.

“We’ve got to keep it quiet. In the first place, the Rankins seem to know as much of what’s going on around here as any of us do. I don’t know who’s spying for them, but I do know he’s pretty good at it. In the second place, we don’t want Krisman crossing us up. So don’t tell anybody you don’t have to.”

But, hard as they might try to keep it a secret, Truitt knew there was a fifty-fifty chance the word would leak out anyway.

With Betty Mulvane, Truitt started the short walk back to town. He moved slowly, stiff and a little sore from the fight.

Worriedly, Betty said, “Mark, you don’t have to do this.”

“I do, Betty. I’ve got a responsibility to the people of this county.”

“Your responsibility ended when they turned you out today. Let their new sheriff handle it for them, if they think he’s so good.”

“He can’t, Betty. You know that. I don’t even know if I can. But I’ve got to try it once when I don’t have a hand tied behind my back, when I can go over the river after the Rankins.”

“Lots of men wouldn’t care what happened after they were voted out.”

“But I care, Betty. This town is home to me. I have lots of friends here, friends who’ve backed me whether I won or not. Before I turn the job over to a counterfeit like Krisman, I’ve got to make one more good try, for them.”

They turned in at the sheriff’s office. T.C. stared at Mark’s battered face, but he made no comment. T.C. had had to miss the funeral so he could stay and look after the prisoner.

“I’m going out for a little while, if you’re going to be here, Mark,” T.C. said.

Mark nodded. “Go ahead. I’ll be here.”

He wondered where T.C. was going, until he saw the jailer hail Dalton Krisman on the street and limp over to talk with him.

Mark grinned with what little humor was left in him. “I guess T.C. knows how the election’s going. He wants to be sure he’s still going to have a job.”

Betty poured fresh water in the washbasin and fetched a clean cloth to wash the dirt and blood from Mark Truitt’s face. “I’ll worry about you all the time you’re out, Mark. But I want you to know this—I’m proud of you for going.”

She leaned down and kissed him.

They gathered at Betty’s cafe, one by one, soon after dark. There were Homer Brill and Joe Franks, as inseparable as beef and beans. They would argue and needle and insult each other all the time they were out, but if one of them ever got his foot in a trap, the other would get him out or break his neck trying.

There was Harley Mills, a good-natured cowboy who had never said a cross word to anyone in his life, as far as Mark knew. But you couldn’t walk over him. When he got real quiet, you’d better watch out, because he might be fixing to stomp you good.

Luke Merchant was the old hand of the bunch, quiet and efficient, gray-haired now but still rawhide tough. He could have been sheriff any time he had wanted the job. Last was Will Tony, grim, taciturn, carrying his grief and his hatred wound up inside him tighter than a watch spring.

Betty had supper ready for them, fried steak and potatoes, with hot biscuits and red beans, and plenty of coffee. She watched soberly while they ate, and a sparkling of tears showed in her worried eyes.

Mark broke the silence only once to ask, “Did Nichols eat much?”

She nodded. “He put away a good supper.”

Mark said, “He’s going to need it. He’s in for a surprise.”

Finishing up, the men rolled cigarettes and sat smoking them, looking down at the table, or out the window into darkness, dreading the start and putting it out of their thoughts as long as they could. Every man knew the danger he was getting into, and he knew he might not come back. Chip Tony was fresh on their minds. Yet, because of Chip Tony, not a man was ready to call it off.

There was a sound outside, and Betty looked up quickly. “Uh-oh. Trouble.”

Dalton Krisman pushed the door open and stood there looking at the possemen. Behind him was the dried-up publisher, Scott Southall. “What do you think you’re doing, Mark Truitt?” Krisman demanded. “You heard the final count. I beat you, two to one. Where do you think you’re going, now that you’ve got to turn in your badge?”

Innocently Mark Truitt looked at the men around him as if to ask if any of them knew what Krisman was talking about. “Who said I was going anywhere?”

“You’ve got saddle horses waiting over in the livery barn. I saw them myself. I know what you’re up to, Truitt, and I’m here to stop you. I’m the new sheriff around here.”

“This is Saturday,” Truitt reminded him coldly. “The last I heard, you won’t be sworn in till Monday morning.”

“The wish of the people has been made known. There’s nothing left but a formality. You’re through, Truitt.”

Firmly Truitt said, “I still have the badge on. Till I take it off, I’m the sheriff.”

Krisman’s face reddened. “The judge can stop you, and he will. I’ve sent Jase Duncan to fetch him.”

A moment of despair came to Mark Truitt. This was a sorry way for it to end. He sat down and turned his back on Krisman, as if he had given up.

“Betty,” he asked, “you do still have some of that good plum jelly down in the cellar?

“I’ve got some here on the shelf,” she said, not understanding.

“It’s been open too long. I want some fresh. Lend me the key.”

When he got it, he drew his six-shooter. “Krisman, you and Southall come along with me. We’re going to get some of that jelly.”

Krisman blustered. Truitt poked him in the belly with the gun muzzle, and Krisman stepped sharply to the door. Joe Franks and Homer Brill grinned like a pair of Cheshire cats and followed along behind.

The cellar was in back of the cafe, with ground-level double doors that opened flat. Mark unsnapped the padlock and swung one of the doors open. A set of steep stairs led down into the dark, cool hole.

“Go ahead, Krisman. You too, Southall.”

The muzzle of Homer Brill’s gun prodded the man down the steps in a hurry. “Hurry up there, Sheriff,” he said sarcastically. “Can’t keep the press waiting.” He turned back to Southall. “You next, Editor.”

Mark shut the door behind the pair and snapped the padlock in place. He could hear them shouting, but the earthen walls of the cellar absorbed most of the sound. It would not carry far. Unless someone just happened to be walking down the alley, it was unlikely the two would be heard.

Mark walked back into the cafe and handed Betty the key. “You might want to take a look in there tomorrow morning,” he said.

She smiled a little, understanding now. Then the smile was gone. He saw the tears she was fighting back. “Be careful, Mark.”

He took her hand. “I will.” He didn’t want to let the hand go. He leaned forward and kissed her. “Betty,” he said hesitantly, “when I come back—”

He paused there, and she asked, “What, Mark?”

He gripped her hand tightly. The words somehow slipped away from him. “I’ll tell you then,” he said, and moved out into the night.

The possemen held the horses in the darkness behind the jail, while Mark Truitt went in the front. He paused, looking in the window first to be sure the judge wasn’t there. Then he hurried through the open front door and took the keys off his desk. T.C. looked up from a newspaper he was reading.

“I’m taking the prisoner, T.C.,” Mark said.

The crippled jailer stood up worriedly. “They’re not working up a lynch mob again, are they?”

Mark didn’t answer. He swung the cell door open and motioned with his chin. “Come on, Nichols.”

Mark locked the handcuffs on Claude Nichols’ wrists and handed the man his hat from a nail on the wall. “Let’s go.”

He paused at the door. “Blow out the lamp, T.C. As far as anybody needs to know, Nichols is still in here.”

The light winked out and T.C. stood on the porch. “You’d think they’d have given up this lynch talk. You never can tell what people are going to do.”

*   *   *

Just at daybreak they rode up to George Frisco’s little adobe ranch house deep in the dry, thorny stretch of brush country that lay north of the big river. Two dogs came bouncing out, barking and raising cain around the horses’ heels. A couple of the horses shied away and kicked at the dogs.

The old rancher poked his gray head out the door and squinted at the riders. He came out, but kept his gnarled hand on the door until he was satisfied who the visitors were.

“Mutt! Shep!” he shouted at the dogs. “Git away! Git!”

The dogs drew back, still barking to show that they remained on guard.

“Mark Truitt,” old George said. “I couldn’t tell who you were at first, you fellers coming along in front of the sun that way. Get down and come in. The coffee’s still hot, and if there’s not enough, we’ll make some more.”

“Thanks, George. We were hoping you’d ask us.”

He had known the rancher would. In this broad, lonesome country, as seldom as people saw each other, the old man probably would have invited the Rankin brothers themselves in, if they’d happened to come riding by.

He’d already had his breakfast—probably had eaten two hours ago—but he poured fresh coffee for the riders, emptying the pot. He put in a few fresh grounds along with the old, added more water, and set the pot back on the stove. He sliced some bacon and made up biscuits out of a big crock of sourdough.

“No eggs,” he apologized. “I used to keep some chickens, but there weren’t enough of them for me and the coyotes both.”

Truitt was grateful for the coffee after the long night ride. It was strong enough to float a six-shooter, the way an old bachelor ranchman like George usually made it. Living alone like this, most men hated to cook. Breakfast and one other meal usually got them by. They made up the rest on strong black coffee.

George stared at the prisoner, and at the handcuffs that still clamped his wrists. He didn’t ask any questions. Chances were he had the situation about half figured out anyway.

“The election’s over, I reckon,” he said. Truitt smiled wanly. “It’s over. I lost.” George swore softly. “Lost? To that Dalton Krisman? Why, I never thought he’d get more than one vote, and that one his own. People get crazier all the time. That’s why I moved way out here, so I wouldn’t have to put up with a lot of their foolishness.”

He shook his gray head, as if he still couldn’t believe it. “Krisman. Now, ain’t that a joke.” He changed the subject then. “You fellas look as if you had a long ride. Why don’t you stretch out and sleep a while?”

They needed it, Truitt knew. But he glanced at the prisoner.

“Don’t worry about him,” George said pointedly. He pulled a pistol out of a holster hanging on the wall and shoved it into his waistband. “He’s going to take a nap too…”

Nichols hadn’t said much during the whole ride. At first he had been eager, for he had assumed, as T.C. did, that the move was to get him away from a lynch mob. As the hours wore on, he had become more and more worried.

Now, an hour after they had saddled their fresh horses and headed south from George’s adobe house, he asked, “What do you want with me, anyhow?”

“You’re going to take us to the Rankins,” Truitt told him flatly.

Nichols shook his head. “I told you once that I’m not going to do it.”

A chill was in Truitt’s voice. “You’ll do it.”

Mark Truitt had been afraid he might not easily find the place where Chip Tony had died, but now here it was, a big opening in the aimless, endless tangle of mesquite and brush and prickly pear. Ugly, red-necked carrion birds flopped their awkward wings and lifted themselves grudgingly into the air, settling back yonder a ways. Here lay two horses, dead now for several days.

Tony had ridden quietly, drawn apart from the others, his thoughts his own. Now he pulled over to Truitt, a bleakness in his eyes. “Is this the place?”

Mark nodded, and Will said, “Show me where they killed him.”

Will Tony stood there a long while, an angry glaze coming over his eyes. He turned upon Nichols then, danger in the grim set of his jaw.

Sensing trouble brewing, Mark said, “We’d better get moving.”

He led off quickly. Will Tony remounted his horse and fell in behind, looking back over his shoulder.

Even after so many days, the trail was not hard to follow, for the Rankins had not tried to hide it. The river was not far ahead. Beyond it was sanctuary. They had had no reason to hurry, or to worry about pursuit.

The seven riders reached the border in about an hour. Here it was, a broad, muddy river hardly deep enough, in most places, to swim a horse. But it might as well have been an ocean, for it was the national boundary, a legal barrier a lawman did not easily breach.

“Too many times I’ve sat here grinding my teeth,” Truitt told the possemen, “knowing they were right over yonder and not being able to go after them.”

Now he had brushed aside all thought of law. His badge meant nothing across the river, and he was losing it anyway. “The river used to look big,” he said, “but now it looks mighty little. Let’s get across it.”

He splashed out into the muddy water, in the lead. The others strung out behind him. They were far out from the bank before they reached water deep enough to make the horses swim. Within moments the hooves found solid footing again, and the riders were across the river.

Stopping on the far bank to let the horses shake themselves off, Mark Truitt looked back across the river with a strange sense of jubilation. Swimming it had been in a way like striking a long-awaited blow at an old enemy. There was no telling what people would do to him when he got back to Lofton. He’d worry about that some other time. Right now he didn’t care. What mattered was that he had crossed the river.

“Your badge doesn’t mean much now, does it, Mark?” commented Luke Merchant. He’d crossed a river or two himself, in his time. “We’re on our own.”

“We always were,” Mark replied.

He turned to Nichols. “Now comes your part, what we brought you for. You know where the Rankins stay when they’re over here. You’re going to take us to them.”

Nichols tensed. “You might just as well take me back to your jail, Truitt. If I were to tell you, my life wouldn’t be worth a counterfeit Confederate dollar.”

“It won’t be worth more if you don’t.” Truitt’s voice was firm. “We’re going, with or without you. The bargain I offered you still goes. Lead us to the Rankins, and we’ll turn you loose; you’ll have your freedom. If you don’t lead us there, we can’t afford to be tied down to you. We’ll have to get rid of you.” His hand lay on the rope tied to his saddle.

Nichols’s face was pale. His tongue ventured out over dry lips. “It wouldn’t be legal, Sheriff.”

“We stopped being legal when we crossed the river. Make up your mind. Which are you most scared of, the Rankins or us?”

Nichols’s gaze swept over the six men around him, and he found no comfort in the stony faces. Will Tony’s right hand worked the hornstring loose from his saddle. Grimly he began shaking out his rope.

“You say you’ll let me go?” Nichols queried anxiously.

“That’s our agreement,” said Mark. “Your freedom for the Rankins.” Nichols looked at Will Tony once again, watching Will finger the rope. For a moment death brushed him with its cold hand. “All right,” he said weakly, nodding his head. “I’ll take you.”

“Lead out, then,” Mark said firmly. “And just remember this—one wrong move and you’re dead.”

For a time they moved along the trail left by the stolen cattle. There had been no rain to alter it. Wind had scoured away much of the loose sand, but the ground was still visibly scarred. Eventually, however, the tracks were lost in a general scattering of cow trails.

“They turned the cattle loose down here,” Nichols said. “The Rankins have a mighty big herd now, and most of them wear brands from north of the river. The Rankins just about took over this stretch of country around here. Some of the people work for them, and the rest are too scared to put up a fuss.

“When they get a little short of cash they round up a few head and sell them farther west, back over the river. But I imagine the big part of all the cattle they’ve stolen are still right down here, scattered from Cape Cod to Hickory Bend. Edsel has some big notion of being the biggest cowman in northern Mexico someday.”

“What about young Floyd?”

“As long’s he has plenty of whisky and pretty women, he doesn’t care whether school keeps or not.”

Keeping the lead, Mark Truitt stayed in the brush. His eyes searched the skyline for signs of other riders. Above all, they had to get across this dry and baking land without being seen.

Once he spotted a man half a mile to the east, pushing a horse along in a slow lope. Quickly Mark stepped out of the saddle, and signaled the others to do the same.

“Think he’s seen us?” asked Homer Brill.

“He might have seen you,” Joe Franks said, “sticking up there like a telegraph pole.”

“I don’t imagine he saw us,” Mark told them. “We’ve got a good cover of brush. I just wish I knew who he was, and what he’s doing down here.” He turned back to Nichols. “How much farther?”

Nichols shrugged. “We might make it by dark. At the rate we’re going, we’re not getting there very fast.”

“It’s better to stick to the brush and get there slow than break out in the open and have them waiting for us,” Mark replied.

The afternoon sun pressed down on them with all the deadening power that July can have in the dry brush country. Even at a slow trot, the horses sweated heavily. Mark rubbed his sleeve across his face, tasting the salt of perspiration on his lips and the burn of it in his eyes.

It was hotter here even than at Lofton, because the elevation had dropped. Lofton was considered dry country, but here, beyond the river, the annual rainfall was much less than that north of the border. It showed in the stunted brush, the sparse, coarse grass, the thick scattering of pear and cactus. It was outlaw country in every way, Mark thought. Even the land itself seemed forsaken.

Now and then they began running into cattle. The animals were as wild as deer down here in this big open country, where they had to walk a long way to get enough to eat and drink.

“Look there, Luke,” Mark said, pointing to the LS brands on the hips of a bunch of cows, before the cattle clattered away.

Luke Merchant nodded grimly. Many a time, as LS wagon boss, he had counted up the losses after the Rankins cut a swath across his company’s range.

Nichols was tensed up like a man waiting for the hang rope. Mark knew why. If anything went wrong now, if the Rankins should come upon them, they would know Nichols had led the posse here. It wouldn’t go easy with him.

“We’re getting closer,” Nichols said thinly.

“How close?”

“An hour or so, I reckon, at the rate we’re going.”

Mark looked to the west. The sun was not far above the skyline any more. It was losing some of its awful heat. In an hour it would be sundown. He wanted time and light to look the situation over.

“Let’s ride a little faster, then,” he said.

Harley Mills was humming a tuneless something half under his breath, behind Mark. Harley never spoke unless he had to, but that humming was always there. It had never bothered Mark before. Now, in this building tension, it grated on his nerves. Easy now, he told himself. Go easy or you’ll bust a spring.

Working out to the edge of the brush, they came in sight of the Rankin headquarters just before the sun reached the top of the rocky hill off in the west. It was an old adobe-built outfit, and some of the out-buildings were crumbling because of neglect. The only half-decent building left was the main house itself, a square brown structure squatting in the sun amid a loose scatter of mesquites and prickly pear and guajillo brush.

Behind the adobe sat a low-built jacal made of mesquite poles and thatched with the thin, sharp blades of the bear grass. The corrals, of crooked mesquite trunks and branches, leaned one way and the other, needing attention. The only thing resembling a barn was an arbor of mesquite posts, the top piled high with brush for shade. All four sides were open to the scorching winds and the rain, when there was any rain.

“That’s it,” Nichols said with a quiet desperation. “Now I’ve held up my end of the trade. You fellers have to turn me loose.”

Mark said, “We’ll turn you loose, but not just yet. You might decide to redeem yourself by running down there and spoiling everything we set out to do.”

They all dismounted and squatted on the ground to look over the dusty Rankin camp. Luke Merchant pointed. “There are horses in the corral, Mark. It looks as if they’re home.”

Mark nodded. “Somebody is.” He watched a man walk out of the adobe house with a bucket in his hand and dip it into a water barrel, then go back into the house.

“Lupe Aguilar,” said Nichols. “He cooks for the outfit.”

A moment later another man walked out to the corral.

“Shark Fisher,” Nichols whispered. “Edsel Rankin never goes anywhere without him.”

Mark’s voice was tight. “Then the Rankins must be there.”

He studied the building, looking for the best way to get in. There was too much open ground to cross to rush in from here. The Rankins would spot them too soon and would have time to put up a defense. But if they could get in close, and overrun the camp in a matter of seconds …

“Is that arroyo yonder deep enough to hide a horse?”

Nichols nodded. “It’s six feet or so along this end. Floyd Rankin fell in it one night when he was drunk. He almost broke his neck.”

Mark grunted in satisfaction. “Is there any way to get a horse out of it, down there close to the house?”

“The bank’s caved back just below the corrals yonder, where that brush comes in so thick. You could get horses up over it there.”

Mark looked back at the men behind him. “That’s the way, then. We’ll go into the arroyo here in the brush, leading our horses. We’ll stay in it, out of sight, till we get down below the corrals. We’ll mount up then and rush the house before they have time to get ready for us.”

Will Tony broke his somber silence. “Do you want prisoners, Mark?”

“We’ll take them if we can. But remember this—we may never have another chance like this at the Rankins. If we can’t take the Rankins to prison, we don’t want to leave them alive.”

Will Tony’s mouth went flat. “That suits me fine.”

Nichols was trembling. “What about me?”

“We can’t leave you out here. You’ll have to go in with us.”

“But you made me a promise.”

“And we’ll keep it. After this thing is done.”

He motioned the others to follow him. Working carefully through the thinning mesquite, they led their horses until they came at last to the arroyo. They had to hunt awhile to find a place where the banks were caved enough to get the horses down.

Mark moved out in front, six-shooter in his hand, picking his way cautiously along the gravelly bottom of the arroyo. This section was a near stranger to rain. Yet, when it came, it often fell in a violent downpour that sent great sheets of water cascading along to slash and erode the land and leave angry gashes like this red arroyo as a further blight to disfigure the appearance of an already blighted land.

It was almost dark now, and he knew this would be a race against time. He could smell the wood smoke that drifted out from the chimney of the adobe house. They might be eating about now.

There might never be a better time to catch them. It occurred to him that he hadn’t eaten anything since he had left George Frisco’s place this morning, except for a tin of sardines he had split with Will Tony. But he felt no hunger. The rising excitement took care of that.

He felt his heartbeat quickening. He had been in tight places, but he felt that never before had he been in one as tight as this, or important. He glanced back at the men behind him. Their grim, nervous faces showed they were feeling the sense of strain just as he did.

Scared? Sure, he was scared. He always had been when he got in a situation like this. He had never been ashamed to admit it. But despite the tug of fear, he went on. He always did. And he knew that the men behind would follow him.

They moved carefully up the arroyo, with the air still and close and stifling hot. Occasionally Mark paused to move aside a rock that might make a horse stumble. He wished time and again that he could afford to risk a look out over the top of that bare rim.

A foreboding came to him then, a sense that something would go wrong, or perhaps already had gone wrong. He wanted to dismiss it, but the experience of past years told him to heed. He had to look out over the top now. He found a little niche for a foothold and cautiously raised up.

He saw horsemen sweeping toward the arroyo from out of the cover of brush.

“Look out,” he shouted, “It’s a trap!” He triggered a quick shot at the horsemen.

“Mount up and run!”

It was hopeless to stay here and put up a fight. They would be like quail caught on the ground, hemmed between these narrow red banks.

He heard a sharp cry as a bullet struck one of the possemen. But in the space of two or three seconds every man was in the saddle and spurring back down the arroyo.

Their trap sprung seconds too early, the outlaws pressed in closer. Guns crashed. Red dirt spat from the arroyo rim as bullets dug in. The outlaws were pushing along even with the possemen, keeping up a running fire. The lawmen were firing back, all of them but stocky Joe Franks. He bent low over the horn, clutching a wounded arm. But he was spurring as hard as the rest.

Through the dust and the smoke, Mark glimpsed Edsel Rankin. In desperation he leveled a shot at him, but knew he had missed. He fired at another rider, though, and he didn’t miss. The man toppled from his horse and rolled over the edge into the arroyo, dropping heavily to the gravel floor.

Heart in his throat, Mark spurred hard, bringing up the rear and keeping the fire going, holding the Rankin bunch off as much as he could from the rest of the men up front. Once again he caught sight of Edsel Rankin, but he couldn’t get a clear shot at him. He looked for Floyd Rankin. He saw him nowhere in this group of riders.

With Will Tony in front, the possemen reached a break in the arroyo wall and put their horses up out of it. Claude Nichols’s horse stumbled on the treacherous footing and went down on its knees. Nichols spurred anxiously, giving the animal its head.

From out of the dust, Edsel Rankin shoved up on the far bank of the arroyo. He shouted Nichols’s name and fired. Nichols slumped over his horse’s neck. Mark triggered another shot at Edsel, and the outlaw pulled back. Nichols’s horse got its footing and went up out of the arroyo. Harley Mills grabbed Nichols in time to keep him from sliding out of the saddle.

Mark came out of the arroyo last, turning back to fire once more as he reached the level ground on top. He heard wild bullets whine out into the brush. Will Tony was down on the ground, kneeling with his saddlegun in his hand, ignoring the fire around him to take slow and careful aim. Every time he pulled the trigger, a man or a horse went down on the opposite side.

“Come on, Will,” Mark shouted. But Will seemed transfixed. He kept on firing.

Mark pulled his horse up beside him, leaned down and grabbed Will’s arm. “Come on, Will,” he shouted again. “We’ve got to find better cover. They’ll be over in a minute.”

They pulled back into deeper brush, with Harley holding the wounded Nichols in the saddle. The Rankin crew had found a place where they could jump their horses over the arroyo. They continued swapping fire with the possemen, but they kept a respectful distance. Neither side’s fire was effective.

“The only thing we can do now is wait for dark, so we can slip out of here,” Mark said.

He turned to see how badly hurt Joe Franks was, and found Homer Brill already wrapping Franks’ arm. Tight-lipped, but forcing a grin, Joe said, “A dog bit me worse than this, once.”

“How long did he live?” Homer asked.

Claude Nichols was hard hit. Blood oozed from a hole high in his left shoulder. They had a hard time stopping the bleeding. Nichols lay groaning, his face the color of paste, cold sweat standing on his forehead.

“They smashed his shoulder,” Harley said. He had sure and gentle fingers when it came to a thing like this. He was wrapping the wound. “He’ll die, just lying here.”

“Let him,” Will Tony growled. “He’s one of them.”

“No.” Mark shook his head. “We can’t just let him die without a chance. You’ve got to admit he kept his end of the bargain.”

“Did he? They were waiting for us, weren’t they? He must’ve gotten word to them somehow.”

Luke Merchant spoke up. “They got their word all the way from Lofton, Will. Didn’t anybody see him but me?”

“See who?” Mark demanded.

“Jase Duncan. He was with Edsel Rankin a while ago.”

“Then Krisman’s tied up with the Rankin boys,” Will said bitterly.

“Maybe,” Mark Truitt replied. “But more likely they’ve been using him, and he just didn’t have sense enough to see it.”

He bent over Nichols. “Nichols, can you hear me?”

Nichols nodded weakly. “I hear you.” His voice was raspy.

“We’ve got to get you out of here. We’ll help you, but you’ve got to ride. Can you make it?”

Nichols nodded again.

Mark said, “Where’s the closest place we can take you where you can get some care?”

“A little town called Rosita. I have a girl there. She’ll help me.”

“Where is it?”

“Ten miles west.”

“Do you have enough strength to help us find it in the dark?”

“I’ll try.”

Darkness was not long in coming. Under its cover, and before the moon could rise, the seven men moved out as quietly as they could, making a wide circle to avoid the Rankin bunch. When Mark thought they were in the clear, he struck a straight line west, guided by the stars.

They finally came across a pair of ruts worn by wagon and cart wheels. Nichols indicated that these would take them into Rosita. It was well they did, for he lapsed into unconsciousness and was useless from then on. They took turns holding him in the saddle—all but Will Tony. He made it plain that he thought they ought to leave Nichols right there in the road.

Luke Merchant pulled in beside Mark. “What do we do now, Mark—go back?”

“I don’t know. I can’t seem to figure anything out. It depends, I guess, on what you men want to do. But I’m not ready to give up without one more good try.”

It was near midnight when they suddenly came upon Rosita. Every dog in town seemed to notice them and run out to bark around the horses’ heels. The horses were too tired to pay much attention.

Rosita was a haphazard collection of adobe buildings and rude jacales, most of them long since dark. Only in one, far down the street, could Mark see light. He heard the listless plunking of a guitar from that one.

The barking of the dogs made Nichols stir. Mark shook him gently. “We’re in town,” he said. “Which house?”

Nichols groaned.

“Which house, Nichols?” Mark pressed him.

Nichols roused himself enough to point. It was an adobe, with most of the plaster gone and the mud blocks disintegrating from lack of care. Mark knocked on the rough wood door. There was no sound, so he knocked again. Presently a dim light glowed through cracks in the door. He heard a bar being lifted out of place. The door swung open and an old Mexican man stood there in nothing but his pants, holding a flickering candle.

“Que pasa?” he asked sleepily.

“Tenemos un amigo aqui,” said Mark. “We have a friend of yours here. He’s wounded.”

The Mexican held the candle to Nichols’s face, and then woke up abruptly. “Maria! Maria!”

Mark and Homer Brill carried the wounded man into the house and laid him down on a blanket on the dirt floor, where the old Mexican evidently had been sleeping. A girl came in from the other room of the small house, tugging at a loose cotton dress.

“Quien es, Papa?”

She recognized Nichols then, and her hand went up to her mouth. “Claudio!”

For a moment she swayed in shock. Then she got hold of herself and knelt by the man’s side. Mark helped her turn Nichols over on his stomach. She tore away the shirt and saw the wound. She shouted orders at the old man. He brought a bottle of tequila, and she began using it to clean the wound. Nichols was in the hands of a good nurse, Mark figured. There was no need of their remaining here any longer.

“One thing,” he told the girl. “He’s hiding from the Rankins. If they find out he’s here, they’ll come and kill him.”

The old Mexican’s eyes widened. “Rankin? But the rojo, the little Floyd, he is in town now. He drinks at the cantina.”

“Are you sure?” Mark demanded.

“Si, señor. All day he has been there, drinking tequila. He makes my son Pepe play the guitar for him. Pepe has not yet come home.”

Will Tony’s face clouded. “We don’t have to go home empty-handed, then. We can get one Rankin.”

Mark said, “That we can, Will. We might even get two Rankins before this is over. Let’s go.”

They remounted and moved up the street, if it might be called a street. It was a meandering trail, worn more by convenience than by plan. Only one building showed a light, and the lone guitar still strummed inside. Even without seeing the crude lettering on the front, Mark knew this had to be the cantina.

He saw two horses standing hipshot in front, hitched to a post. They were gaunt. They probably had stood there like that all day, without anyone’s bothering to feed or water them.

The cantina had an open window. Sometime in the past there had been a pane, but the glass was long since gone. Mark leaned low in the saddle for a glimpse inside.

He saw a man, an American, slumped asleep in a chair at a table, an overturned bottle lying in front of him. Another man, a Mexican, half asleep, listlessly fingered a guitar. And in a corner sat red-haired Floyd Rankin, holding a plumpish, dark-skinned girl on his lap. He was kissing her hungrily, his hand roving up and down her back.

He stopped once to drink from a bottle. It tipped over as he set it down on the dirt floor. He laughed foolishly, caught it, and set it up again. Then he went back to kissing the girl.

“Wake up that guitar, Pepe,” he shouted. “How can I make love without music?”

The guitar music livened up for a moment, then slowed again. Pepe was tired and sleepy and wanted to go home.

Mark pulled back and dismounted. The others followed suit. “Here, Joe,” he said. “You’d better hold the horses. The rest of you come in with me. No shooting unless we have to. I want Floyd Rankin alive.”

He pushed the door open and moved well inside, gun in hand. The possemen fanned out on either side of him. Floyd Rankin’s gun belt hung from a chair by his corner table. He jumped to his feet, dumping the plump girl unceremoniously on the floor. He reached for the gun.

“Don’t do it, Rankin. We’ll kill you!”

Too drunk to reason, Rankin hesitated. Mark took two quick steps forward and grabbed the gun belt. At the last second Floyd Rankin lunged for it, and sprawled out drunkenly on the dirt floor. Mark pitched the gun belt back to Harley Mills.

He took a quick glance over the room. There had been only three men in it besides Rankin—the guitar player, a nodding old man behind the plank bar, and the sleeping American at the table. All of them were awake now.

The American was slow in coming around. When at last he perceived what was taking place, he made a grab at his hip. But Homer Brill had already relieved him of his gun.

“Just sit there and keep still,” Mark said roughly. “We’re not interested in you.”

To Rankin he said, “Come on, Floyd. You’re riding with us.”

Rankin was sobering quickly. “That badge doesn’t mean a thing down here, Truitt. Besides, they tell me you were going to lose that election. You’re not the sheriff any more anyhow. You have no right to take me back to jail.”

“Correct,” Mark said coldly. “I have no right, so I’m not taking you to jail. I’m going to take you back and turn you over to the ranchers. They’ll know what to do with you.”

It was a lie, but it served the purpose. Folks said the Rankins were fearless, but there was fear in Floyd Rankin’s eyes now. Even the coldest of them was likely to feel sick at the thought of rough hemp drawing tight around his neck.

“The ranchers? That’ll be a lynch mob, Truitt. There won’t even be a trial.”

Mark shrugged. “I don’t imagine there will. You’ve never given anybody a trial before you killed him. Let’s move out.”

Will Tony protested, nodding toward the other American at the table. “What about this one? He’s part of the bunch.”

Mark replied, “We probably couldn’t prove it. We’ve got a Rankin, and one prisoner is enough. Let that one go.”

Will Tony hesitated, looking for a moment as if he might shoot the outlaw anyway.

“I said let him go,” Mark gritted.

The outlaw swallowed hard, his face gone pale. He was suddenly cold sober. The plump girl began shaking her fist and cursing the possemen. She scooped up an empty tequila bottle from the floor and hurled it at them. She rushed at Will Tony, her sharp fingernails reaching for his eyes. Will slapped her so hard she fell to the floor.

They hustled Floyd Rankin out the door and slammed it behind them.

“Which horse is yours, Floyd?”

Instead of replying, Rankin tried to make a run for it. Mark stuck out his foot and tripped him. He pounced on him, dropping his knee on the man’s stomach hard enough to knock the wind out of him.

“You can just get that kind of business out of your head.”

He took out the handcuffs he had used on Nichols and clamped them on Rankin’s wrists.

“Which horse, Floyd?”

Rankin gasped for breath. When he got it back, he said weakly, “The dun.”

They put him on it and rode out, heading due north. They crossed the big river before they stopped to rest the horses, and then only because Mark was afraid the animals couldn’t make the remainder of the trip unless they halted awhile. The riders dismounted stiff and weary and hungry, and most of them flopped down upon the ground.

But Will Tony sat upright, a lingering resentment in his face. He hadn’t spoken since they left Rosita. Now he glared at Floyd Rankin. Mark knew Will was half hoping Rankin would try to run again, so he could have an excuse to shoot him.

“What’s eating you, Will? You’ve been in a black mood ever since we left that town.”

“It’s that other one, the one we let go. We ought to’ve shot him like a snake. We oughtn’t let a single one of them get away.”

“I didn’t just let him go, Will. I turned him loose for a reason.”

“What reason could there be?”

“To tell Edsel Rankin what happened. To put him on our trail. If he thinks we’re going to turn Floyd over to the ranchers for a hanging, he won’t waste any time coming after us.”

“And what do we do when he does?”

“We’ll just try to be ready.”

Mark had never seen a chained wolf act meaner than Floyd Rankin was acting now. “You won’t get away with this, Truitt,” Floyd said, snarling. “Edsel will eat you up alive.”

“We’ll see.” Truitt decided to try his luck getting a little information out of Floyd. “Edsel’s pretty smooth, having Jase Duncan in Lofton to spy for him.”

Floyd grinned gloatingly. “So you finally found out about Jase. It took you long enough.”

“You even had Dalton Krisman on your side.”

“Yeah, only he’s too dumb to know it. Edsel sent him campaign money to beat you, but he didn’t let Krisman know where it came from. Jase would give it to him and tell him he collected it among friends who wanted to see him put you out of office. He beat you, too, didn’t he?”

“He beat me,” Mark said.

“Edsel’s smart. He’ll fix your wagon. You just wait and see.”

They rested until well past sunup, then started out again. But the horses were still tired. The riders had to go slow to keep from wearing them out. Every so often they would get off and walk awhile, leading, saving the horses.

Mark Truitt kept watching the back trail for dust. He didn’t think Rankin could be on them this soon, but he couldn’t be sure. One thing a man had to admit about the Rankins, they would do just what you thought they wouldn’t. Rankin would have fresh horses, and the trail the posse was leaving was clear enough for a ten-year-old boy to follow.

The long, hot day sapped them of strength. They needed sleep, and the heavy hands of fatigue were on every man’s shoulder. Hot and miserable though he was, the grimy sweat working into his eyes and down his collar, Mark found himself dozing occasionally as he rode.

He had a rope around Floyd Rankin’s neck, the other end tied to his own horn, so Rankin could not run away. The sun was well into the brassy western sky when they caught the welcome sight of old George Frisco’s adobe ranch house. The horses were barely going to make it.

As before, the dogs met them, setting up an awful racket, but now it disturbed the horses not at all. George Frisco hobbled out from his open-front adobe barn and waved his hand.

Mark half fell off, he was so tired. George hurried to him and steadied him. The old man said with concern, “Don’t you fellers ever know when to quit? Get down, all of you, and rest yourselves. I’ll hustle you something to eat.”

He noticed Floyd Rankin then. His gray-bearded jaw dropped. “Looks as if you made you a haul. But where’s the other one?”

Mark said, “He’ll be along directly, I expect.” He shook his head. “You may not like what we’re fixing to do to you, George. I’d have asked you first, if I could. There’s liable to be a mighty big fight here after a while. I think you’d better ride off out in the brush and wait till it’s over.”

George frowned. “You mean Edsel’s coming after this young heathen?”

Mark nodded. “He’s our bait.”

“How many men will Edsel be bringing?”

“There’s no way of telling.” The old man lifted a rifle off a pair of pegs on the wall, and opened the breech. “Then one more on your side won’t hurt you any. Hell no, I’m not going to ride off into the brush and hide.”

While George Frisco hurriedly prepared something for the hungry men to eat, Mark walked out to scout around the house, hunting places that would provide good cover. By the time they had all eaten, a pinpoint of dust was showing up to the south, along their back trail. “I’m going to stand here on the porch and draw them in,” Mark said. “I have places picked out for the rest of you. If Edsel Rankin can set a trap, so can we.”

Joe Franks, with the stiff arm, took a saddlegun and moved out behind an old wagon which lay upended, one wheel off. Homer Brill found a shovel and scooped himself a shallow hole behind a green clump of prickly pear. Harley Mills squatted beside a half dugout which once had been a home for somebody, before the adobe was built, and now was used for storage. Luke Merchant and old George Frisco took opposite ends of the barn.

“There’s a little ditch right over yonder, Will,” Mark said. “It’s got enough brush to hide you, and it’ll let you cover the front of the house.”

“You mean you’re going to stand out on the porch here, in the open, and let them ride right in on you, Mark?”

“Somebody’s got to decoy them, Will, so the rest of you can get a good shot.”

“And what if you don’t get time to duck back through that door when the shooting starts?”

Mark didn’t answer that. “Get on out yonder, Will, while there’s still time.”

Mark took a final look inside at Floyd Rankin. He had handcuffed him to a heavy woodstove. He had wadded a rag into Rankin’s mouth and tied a handkerchief across Rankin’s face to keep the gag in and prevent him from making any outcry.

“Just you keep quiet now,” he warned.

There wasn’t much else Rankin could do.

Mark stepped out onto the porch, the saddlegun in his hand. He left the door wide open and stood in front of it, so he could jump back inside when the shooting started. He had little hope that the trouble would end without shooting.

The pinpoint of dust had grown greatly. Presently the riders showed up through the brush. They paused a moment, just out of firing range of the house, cautiously looking the situation over. Mark hoped everybody was well out of sight.

The outlaws studied the adobe house. A man pointed at the corral, with all the horses in it. Then Mark could feel the eyes all fasten on him. He braced, hoping they wouldn’t shoot him right now. But he reasoned that they wouldn’t, at least until they knew where Floyd Rankin was.

He counted thirteen men. Unlucky for somebody, he thought. Who?

Edsel Rankin led them, riding a high-strung bay horse and jerking it violently, cursing when it fought its head. Holding a six-gun, Rankin made a motion with his hand. His men fanned out on either side of him. Some were Americans, some Mexicans. Every man bore the stamp of an outlaw. All of them had guns out and ready.

Rankin drew rein twenty paces from the house, warily eyeing the windows. He looked at Mark Truitt then, and his gray eyes stabbed with hatred.

“I want my brother, Truitt.”

“So do I,” Mark replied.

Rankin’s face was dark and twisted. “Send him out here, Truitt, and we’ll ride away. You know we’ve got you outnumbered. Hold back and we’ll pull that house right down over your ears.”

Inside the house, Mark Truitt could hear Floyd Rankin stamping his feet. The bare earth would make no sound, so he must have twisted around to where he could stamp against the side of the cookstove. Edsel Rankin heard the noise too, and Mark knew the outlaw sensed that it was his brother.

Mark said, “You can’t afford to do any wild shooting, Edsel. He’s in there, and you might hit him.”

He could see this realization reach Edsel Rankin and feed his anger.

Mark said, “We want you too, Edsel. You may have us outnumbered, but we’ve got you surrounded. You can’t get out of here.”

Edsel Rankin’s head jerked desperately around as he tried to seek out the men waiting in ambush.

“Mark Truitt,” he breathed, “I’ll nail you to the door!”

His gun muzzle came up.

Mark dove back inside the door. He hit the dirt floor on his side and went rolling. Half a dozen bullets buzzed after him like angry hornets, and he felt one graze his leg with a touch of fire.

Knowing now that they were in a trap, some of the outlaws wheeled their horses around and spurred out. In an instant, guns roared around them. Three men fell in the first volley. One got up again, but two of them never would.

Edsel Rankin screamed something and spurred out toward the barn, his men right behind him. Gunfire from George and Luke turned them back. Rankin’s Mexican sombrero jerked away. One of the men behind him bounced half out of the saddle, then caught himself and held on weakly, while his horse stampeded past Luke Merchant. The rider bobbed a time or two and fell rolling.

Rankin wheeled his horse back and tried to run straight out the way he had come, firing blindly as he spurred. Mark Truitt’s saddlegun crashed. Rankin’s horse stumbled and went down. Rankin rolled in the sand. He came up fighting, shooting in Truitt’s direction and grabbing at the reins of a panicked horse that had just lost its rider.

Guns roared. Fire spat from every direction. Heavy smoke drifted across the wild melee. Horses squealed in terror. One horse went down, and then another.

All this time Rankin was shouting and cursing and firing wildly at everything he saw move. None of his men were listening to him. Gripped by fear, they moved blindly one way, then another, firing at anything or nothing.

Mark saw a familiar figure then. Jase Duncan was one of the few still on horseback. He spurred toward the open door, hoping perhaps to kill Truitt and get to safety inside. Mark raised the saddlegun and held it steady. When Duncan was almost to the porch, he squeezed the trigger. Duncan dropped like a sack of lead.

All of Rankin’s men were afoot now, crouching to provide less of a target. Their horses were tearing wildly back and forth, hunting a way out. Some of the men were pleading for mercy, raising their hands. Rankin was cursing them, calling them a hundred kinds of yellow coward. But they were through, and he could see it.

“Give up, Rankin,” Mark Truitt called. “You can’t get out of this alive.” Edsel Rankin grabbed the reins of a panicked horse. He fought to get a foot in the stirrup, then swung up. Spurring viciously, he headed the horse straight for the door, straight at Mark Truitt.

Mark brought the saddlegun up again. Rankin’s six-gun fired. Mark felt the saddlegun take the impact of the bullet. The gun splintered in his hands. The force of it drove the gun back into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. He stood there stunned, unable to move.

Edsel Rankin was almost on him, the six-gun leveling again. Helpless, Mark could only stand and look into Rankin’s twisted face, to see the rage and the hatred that surged up there.

Then he saw a movement behind Rankin, saw Will Tony raise himself up out of the ditch. He saw flame belch from Will Tony’s gun. Edsel Rankin buckled. His horse stopped abruptly. Rankin’s body pitched forward, over the frightened horse’s head. It landed on the porch and went rolling, coming to a standstill at Mark Truitt’s feet.

The shooting was over now. The Rankin bunch, what was left of them, stood with their hands up, in the stifling swirl of smoke and dust. Mark saw his own men break out of their vantage points and come hurrying toward him.

He knelt and looked at Edsel Rankin’s body, then straightened again. He saw the question in Will Tony’s eyes as Will came up. He nodded, and a look of satisfaction came over Will Tony. Mark had done what he came for. The Rankins were through.

*   *   *

Probably there wasn’t a person in Lofton who missed seeing the posse come into town. By the time the horsemen pulled up in front of the sheriff’s office, there must have been fifty or sixty people crowding around to watch Mark Truitt and the others step down and hold guns on seven weary, beaten outlaws.

Young Floyd Rankin was handcuffed. The rest had their wrists bound to their saddle horns. Mark Truitt moved from one to another, cutting the rawhide strings that held them, so they could dismount.

The word swept across town like a whirlwind. “They’ve got Floyd Rankin down at the jail!”

Betty Mulvane rushed from her cafe and ran down the street. She shoved her way through the crowd and threw her arms around Mark. She didn’t care who was watching. She couldn’t speak, but she didn’t have to.

T.C. stood in the doorway. “Unlock the cells, T.C.,” Mark said.

They moved the outlaws inside. Mark followed them, his arm around Betty.

Just then Dalton Krisman came pushing through. “Make room here,” he shouted. “Make way for the law.”

He bustled through the office door, a gun in his hand.

“Hands up, Mark Truitt,” he barked. “You’re under arrest.”

But shortly behind him came the balding old judge. “Put that gun up, Krisman. Haven’t you any sense at all? They’re already trying to laugh you out of town for throwing that girl in jail, even before you got your badge. Can’t you see Mark’s got Floyd Rankin, and some of the rest of the outlaw gang?”

Flinching under the judge’s sharp tongue, Krisman looked about him and saw people snickering. Ridicule was one thing he could not take. He shoved the gun back into the holster where it belonged.

“All right, T.C.,” he said unnecessarily, “lock them up.”

Unnecessarily, because T.C. already had done so.

Even the old jailer was grinning a little, taking a chance on being fired.

Mark Truitt couldn’t resist a little sarcasm himself. “When you get time from your duties, Sheriff, there are three more men out at George Frisco’s place. They were wounded too bad to bring in.”

“And Edsel Rankin?” the judge asked.

“Dead.”

Mark took off his badge, which had remained pinned to his shirt. He extended it past Krisman and handed it to the judge. “Property of the county,” he said.

It was obvious that the judge hated to have to take it. “I’d like a full report on this thing,” he said. “After all, I have to know how you’ve been spending the county’s money. What say we go over to Betty’s and have some coffee?”

The crowd parted and made room for them. By the time they got to Betty’s cafe, Sam Vernon was with them. Luke Merchant had come along, too. Mark told them the story. What he left out, Luke put in.

The judge nodded gravely. “I can guarantee you one thing, Mark; there won’t be any more of this talk about cowardice. They’ve been rawhiding Krisman till his back is sore, about being locked in Betty’s cellar overnight with Scott Southall. People didn’t take it very kindly when he put Betty in jail, either. They didn’t let her stay in there but about an hour.

“I expect when the story gets out about the Rankins financing his campaign, Krisman’ll catch it sure enough. He’ll ride out of town some morning and not come back. We’ll have to hold another election.”

Sam Vernon said, “Mark, you say you think most of the cattle the Rankins have stolen from us are still down there, and we can go down and bring them back?”

Mark nodded. “It’s a mighty big country, and it would take some time. But I think it can be done.”

Sam pondered a while. “Seems to me you’d be the right man to take charge of the roundup. I’d be willing to give you, say, ten percent of my cattle that you recover. I think I could get the others to make the same deal. It’d give you a start, Mark. A good herd of cattle would help you build something while you’re sheriffing. Think it over.”

Mark smiled. “I won’t have to think it over. I’ll take the offer.”

He thought they would never finish their coffee and leave. But at last he was alone with Betty Mulvane.

She touched his hand. “Just before you left, you said you were going to ask me a question.”

He nodded. “I was. I was going to ask you to marry me. I haven’t much in the way of property right now, but maybe someday I will have. If you were to think it over and decide to gamble along with me…”

She leaned her head against his shoulder, smiling. “I won’t have to think it over,” she said. “I’ll take the offer.”