ist of guests for
those whose sympathies were Democratic, others whose masculine
affiliations were Republican.

Hurried messages were sent out to mines and cattle ranches, and in the
afternoon fighting men of both parties began to come in from the
country. A procession of horsemen poured into the town, bronzed and
grim-faced men, each with a roll of blankets behind him, a revolver at
his side, a rifle swung to his saddle, or a shot-gun across its
pommel. They loped about the town, sometimes surrounding the
court-house, angrily discussing whether or not the clerk of the court
was probably hiding the official order, and sometimes lining the two
sides of Main street, as if they were two opposing companies of
cavalry ready to join battle. Among the Republican forces Judge Harlin
saw a red-whiskered Mexican who, he learned, was Antone Colorow. The
man's broken wrists had healed, but they had lost all their
suppleness, and he could never throw the lariat again. He could shoot
as well as ever though, and not a day had passed since that morning at
the round-up when he had not sworn to himself that Emerson Mead should
die by his hand. He hated Mead with all the vengefulness and
fierceness of his race. His mind held but one idea, to work upon the
man who had ruined his occupation the crudest possible revenge, in
whatever way he could compass it. He had allied himself with the
Republican forces only because they were opposed to his enemy, and he
hoped that in the impending clash he would find opportunity to carry
out his purpose.

CHAPTER XXI

On that same Saturday Marguerite Delarue received a letter from Albert
Wellesly saying he would be in Las Plumas the following Tuesday, when
he hoped he would hear from her own lips the answer for which he had
been waiting. She was no nearer a decision than she had been weeks
before, and in her perplexity she at last decided that she must ask
her father's advice. But he was so absorbed in the factional feud that
she could scarcely catch sight of him. In the late afternoon of Sunday
she took little Paul and walked to the mesa east of the town, toward
the Hermosa mountains. For the hundredth time she debated the matter,
for the hundredth time she told herself that he loved her and that she
loved him, that it would please her father, and that there was no
reason why she should not marry him. And for the hundredth time her
misgivings held her back and would not let her say conclusive