nd
bloodless. Was the Railroad to triumph then in the end? After all those
months of preparation, after all those grandiloquent resolutions, after
all the arrogant presumption of the League! The League! what a farce;
what had it amounted to when the crisis came? Was the Trust to crush
them all so easily? Was S. Behrman to swallow Los Muertos? S. Behrman!
Presley saw him plainly, huge, rotund, white; saw his jowl tremulous and
obese, the roll of fat over his collar sprinkled with sparse hairs, the
great stomach with its brown linen vest and heavy watch chain of hollow
links, clinking against the buttons of imitation pearl. And this man was
to crush Magnus Derrick--had already stamped the life from such men as
Harran and Annixter. This man, in the name of the Trust, was to grab Los
Muertos as he had grabbed Quien Sabe, and after Los Muertos, Broderson's
ranch, then Osterman's, then others, and still others, the whole valley,
the whole State.

Presley beat his forehead with his clenched fist as he rode on.

"No," he cried, "no, kill him, kill him, kill him with my hands."

The idea of it put him beside himself. Oh, to sink his fingers deep into
the white, fat throat of the man, to clutch like iron into the great
puffed jowl of him, to wrench out the life, to batter it out, strangle
it out, to pay him back for the long years of extortion and oppression,
to square accounts for bribed jurors, bought judges, corrupted
legislatures, to have justice for the trick of the Ranchers' Railroad
Commission, the charlatanism of the "ten per cent. cut," the ruin of
Dyke, the seizure of Quien Sabe, the murder of Harran, the assassination
of Annixter!

It was in such mood that he reached Caraher's. The saloon-keeper had
just opened his place and was standing in his doorway, smoking his pipe.
Presley dismounted and went in and the two had a long talk.

When, three hours later, Presley came out of the saloon and rode
on towards Bonneville, his face was very pale, his lips shut tight,
resolute, determined. His manner was that of a man whose mind is made
up. The hour for the mass meeting at the Opera House had been set for
one o'clock, but long before noon the street in front of the building
and, in fact, all the streets in its vicinity, were packed from side to
side with a shifting, struggling, surging, and excited multitude. There
were few women in the throng, but hardly a single male inhabitant of
either Bonneville or Guadalajara was a