Frederick R. Bechdolt

“ Old Jim Burnet stood a pace or two away from the group stroking his white beard as he took in the details—the two antagonists facing each other, the grinning cowboys watching them. It struck him that Lon Hudson had decidedly the best of the situation; it would have taken one far larger than himself to tear him from his hold, and there did not appear to be a pound's weight difference between the pair. For a moment Jack Flood seemed nonplused. To draw his gun on an unarmed man would never do. ”

“ AFTER supper Sheriff Jack Flood rode over to the little red brick court-house which was the pride of Chiricahua. On the main street he encountered various of the young town's citizens—Bob Hatch, the owner of the Pony Saloon, a cowman or two, old Jim Burnet the justice of the peace, and the new Wells Fargo agent. They waved him salutation from the sidewalk as he passed; he barely nodded response and rode on looking straight before him, which was his fashion always; a block of a man, tight-lipped and narrow-eyed. ”

“ The noises in the long barroom were growing. Now and again there came the crash of more broken glassware. Jack Welch was hammering the bar with the butt of his six-shooter. The Justice of the Peace stroked his beard and eyed the Sheriff narrowly. The latter had glanced up but if the sight of the weapon reminded him of the ordinances which were being broken he did not betray the fact.
“Now,” old Jim asked himself, “I wonder what he is up to?”
Half an hour later the six cowboys started toward the front door. Jack Flood laid down his hand.
“Got business outside,” he told the other players. ”

“ Now and again a buckboard rattled by, or a light wagon, with a woman in white lawn and colored ribbons beside the driver. Groups of young horsemen came down the street with their tight jean breeches tucked into their boot-tops and their wide-rimmed hats aslant over their sun-burned faces. ”

“ The Sheriff uttered a contemptuous grunt.
“I was in the Pony Saloon the night when he was tellin' everybody how he aimed to shoot Lon Hudson on sight. I saw Lon walk up to him while he was talkin' an' take his gun away from him without laying a hand on his revolver.”
“It ain't Wes's style,” the Justice of the Peace replied placidly, “to face the music. I was playing monte in that El Paso gambling house the time he shot Bill Lang. ”

“ For habit grows strong with the years and Sheriff Jack Flood had been holding a stern face against bad men and Apaches for two decades in a land where he who faltered by the dropping of an eyelash was very likely to die. ”

“ Old Jim stepped forward and confronted the bewildered cowboys. What lay behind this affair he did not know. Had he been capable of questioning a friend's motives he might have made a guess, but he belonged to a breed to whom such suspicions are impossible.
“Acco'din to the statutes of the territory of Arizona”—his voice was coldly judicial—“the co't has the right to fine a man five hundred dollars fer that. I know yo' punchers, all of yo', an' the outfits you are workin' fer. ”

“ He laid fer him outside an' sent a man into the place after him. When Lang came out he drilled him between the eyes from ambush.”
“Well, if that's the kind of a gun-fighter Wes Adams is,” Jack Flood commented, “I reckon the marshal can handle him all right. If he cain't he better quit his job before some of these cowboys gets filled up with whisky.”
“It wan't a nice killin',” old Jim Burnet acknowledged, “an' that's a fact.” ”