gainst him. Long before this hour a
braver man would have come to face Las Vegas. Beasley could not hire
any gang to bear the brunt of this situation. This was the test by which
even his own men must judge him. All of which was to say that as the
wildness of the West had made possible his crimes, so it now held him
responsible for them.

"Abe, if thet--greaser don't rustle down heah I'm goin' after him."

"Sure. But don't be in no hurry," replied Abe.

"I'm waltzin' to slow music.... Gimme a smoke."

With fingers that slightly trembled Abe rolled a cigarette, lit it from
his own, and handed it to the cowboy.

"Las Vegas, I reckon I hear hosses," he said, suddenly.

"Me, too," replied Las Vegas, with his head high like that of a
listening deer. Apparently he forgot the cigarette and also his friend.
Abe hurried back to the store, where he disappeared.

Las Vegas began his stalking up and down, and his action now was an
exaggeration of all his former movements. A rational, ordinary mortal
from some Eastern community, happening to meet this red-faced cowboy,
would have considered him drunk or crazy. Probably Las Vegas looked
both. But all the same he was a marvelously keen and strung and
efficient instrument to meet the portending issue. How many thousands of
times, on the trails, and in the wide-streeted little towns all over the
West, had this stalk of the cowboy's been perpetrated! Violent, bloody,
tragic as it was, it had an importance in that pioneer day equal to the
use of a horse or the need of a plow.

At length Pine was apparently a deserted village, except for Las Vegas,
who patrolled his long beat in many ways--he lounged while he
watched; he stalked like a mountaineer; he stole along Indian fashion,
stealthily, from tree to tree, from corner to corner; he disappeared in
the saloon to reappear at the back; he slipped round behind the barns to
come out again in the main road; and time after time he approached his
horse as if deciding to mount.

The last visit he made into Turner's saloon he found no one there.
Savagely he pounded on the bar with his gun. He got no response. Then
the long-pent-up rage burst. With wild whoops he pulled another gun and
shot at the mirror, the lamps. He shot the neck off a bottle and drank
till he choked, his neck corded, bulging, and purple. His only slow and
deliberate action was the reloading of his gun. Then he crashed through
the doors, and with a wild yell leaped shee