counterblast. The fact that on this
occasion he had managed to restrain himself argued an increase of
self-control that especially gratified him, because his natural
tendency to "fly off the handle" had led more than once to regrettable
results. In fact, it was only since he had assumed the duties of a
peace officer that he had made a serious effort at self-government. A
Ranger's work calls for patience and forbearance, and Dave had begun to
realize the perils of his temperament. Normally he was a level-headed,
conservative fellow, but when angered a thousand devils sprang up in
him and he became capable of the wildest excess. This instability,
indeed, had been largely to blame for his aimless roaming. Deep inside
himself he knew that it was nothing but his headstrong temper which had
brought on all his misfortunes and left him, well along in his
thirties, a wanderer, with nothing he could call his own. As with most
men of his turbulent disposition, fits of fury were usually followed by
keen revulsions of feeling. In Dave these paroxysms had frequently been
succeeded by such a sense of shame as to drive him from the scene of
his actions, and in the course of his rovings he had acquired an ample
store of regrets--bitter food for thought during the silent hours when
he sat over his camp-fire or rode alone through the mesquite. His
hatreds were keen and relentless, his passions wild, and yet, so far as
he knew, they had never led him to commit a mean or a downright evil
deed. He had killed men, to be sure, but never, he was thankful to say,
in one of his moments of frenzy.

The killing of men in the fierce exultation of battle, the slaying of a
criminal by an officer under stress of duty, even the taking of life
under severe personal provocation, were acts that did not put one
beyond the pale. Such blood washes off. But there were stains of a
different kind.

Dave was glad that he had swallowed "Young Ed's" incivility, not only
for his own sake, but for the sake of Alaire.

After all, he argued, it was barely possible that Ed had spoken the
truth. There WERE many sorrel horses; the evidence of those rain-washed
hoof-prints was far from conclusive; even the fact that Urbina belonged
to the Tad Lewis outfit was no more than a suspicious circumstance. And
yet, earnestly as he strove to convince himself of these possibilities,
the Ranger could not down the conviction that the rancher had lied and
that he himself was on the