fraught with serious consequences.

Riding down through the little basin at the end of the arroyo Hollis
yielded to a deep, stirring satisfaction over the excellent beginning he
had made in his fight against Dunlavey and the interests behind him.
Many times he smiled, thinking of the surprise his old friends in the
East must have felt over the perusal of their copies of the
_Kicker_; over the information that he--who had been something of a
figure in Eastern newspaperdom--had become the owner and editor of a
newspaper in a God-forsaken town in New Mexico, and that at the outset
he was waging war against interests that ridiculed a judge of the United
States Court. He smiled grimly. They might be surprised, but they must
feel, all who knew him, that he would stay and fight until victory
rewarded him or until black, bitter defeat became his portion. There
could be no compromise.

When he reached the ridge toward which he had been riding for the
greater part of an hour night had come. The day had been hot, but there
had been a slight breeze, and in the _Kicker_ office, with the
front and rear doors open, he had not noticed the heat very much. But
just as he reached the ridge he became aware that the breeze had died
down; that waves of hot, sultry air were rising from the sun-baked
earth. Usually at this time of the night there were countless stars, and
now as he looked up into the great, vast arc of sky he saw no stars at
all except away down in the west in a big rift between some mountains.
He pulled up his pony and sat motionless in the saddle, watching the
sky. A sudden awe for the grandeur of the scene filled him. He
remembered to have seen nothing quite like it in the East.

Back toward Dry Bottom, and on the north and south, rose great, black
thunderheads with white crests, seeming like mountains with snowcapped
peaks. Between the thunder-heads were other clouds, of grayish-white,
fleecy, wind-whipped, weird shapes, riding on the wings of the
Storm-Kings. Other clouds flanked these, moving slowly and
majestically--like great ships on the sea--in striking contrast to the
fleecy, unstable shapes between the thunderheads, which, though rushing
always onward, were riven and broken by the irresistible force behind
them. To Hollis it seemed there were two mighty opposing forces at work
in the sky, marshalling, maneuvering, preparing for conflict. While he
sat motionless in the saddle watching, a sudden gust of cold wind