"I'll take a slab of side meat an' a pound of ground coffee," the big man
growled.

He made other purchases,--flour, corn meal, beans, and canned tomatoes.
These he put in the gunnysack, tying the open end. Out of the side door
he went to the horses standing by the big freight wagons. The contents of
the sack he transferred to saddle-bags.

Then, without any apparent doubt as to what he was going to do next, he
dropped into another store, one which specialized in guns and ammunition,
though it, too, sold general supplies. He bought cartridges, both for the
two forty-fives and for the rifle he carried. These he actually tested in
his weapons, to make sure they fitted easily.

The proprietor attempted a pleasantry. "You're kinda garnished with
weapons, stranger. Not aimin' to hold up the town, are you?"

The amiable laugh died away. The wall-eyed stranger was looking at him in
bleak silence. Not an especially timid man, the owner of the place felt a
chill run down his spine. That stare carried defiance, an unvoiced
threat. Later, the storekeeper made of it a stock part of his story of
the day's events.

"When the stranger gave me that look of his I knew right away something
was doing. 'Course I didn't know what. I'll not claim I did, but I was
sure there'd be a job for the coroner before night. Blister come into the
store just after he left. I said to him, 'Who's that big black guy?' He
says, 'Jake Houck.' 'Well,' I says, 'Jake Houck is sure up to some
deviltry.'"

It is easy to be a prophet after the event. When Houck jingled out of the
store and along the sidewalk to the hotel, none of the peaceful citizens
he met guessed what he had in mind. None of them saw the signal which
passed between him and the young fellow who had just come out of Dolan's.
This was not a gesture. No words were spoken, but a message went from one
to the other and back. The young puncher disappeared again into Dolan's.

Afterward, when Bear Cat began to assemble its recollections of the
events prior to the dramatic climax, it was surprising how little that
was authentic could be recalled. Probably a score of people noted
casually the three strangers. Houck was recognized by three or four,
Bandy Walker by at least one. The six-foot youngster with them was known
by nobody who saw him. It was learned later that he had never been in the
town before. The accounts of how the three spent the hour between ten and
eleven are confusing. If they me