use, and he was sensitive and dangerous
because of that very thing. Texas, the land of gunfighters, had seen few
who were equal to him in cool nerve and keen eye and swift hand.

Neale did not tell Larry what he had heard. The cowboy changed subtly,
but not in his attitude toward Neale. Benton and its wildness might have
been his proper setting. So many rough and bad men, inspired by the time
and place, essayed to be equal to Benton. But they lasted a day and were
forgotten. The great compliment paid to Larry King was the change in the
attitude of this wild camp. He had been one among many--a stranger.
In time when the dance-halls grew quiet as he entered and the
gambling-hells suspended their games. His fame increased as from lip to
lip his story passed, always gaining something. Jealousy, hatred, and
fear grew with his fame. It was hinted that he was always seeking some
man or men from California. He had been known to question new arrivals:
"Might you-all happen to be from California? Have you ever heard of an
outfit that made off with a girl out heah in the hills?"

Neale, not altogether in the interest of his search for Allie, became a
friend and companion of Place Hough. Ancliffe sought him, also, and he
was often in the haunts of these men. They did not take so readily
to Larry King. The cowboy had become a sort of nervous factor in any
community; his presence was not conducive to a comfortable hour. For
Larry, though he still drawled his talk and sauntered around, looked the
name the Texan visitors had left him. His flashing blue eyes, cold
and intent and hard in his naming red face, his blazing red hair, his
stalking form, and his gun swinging low--these characteristics were so
striking as to make his presence always felt. Beauty Stanton insisted
the cowboy had ruined her business and that she had a terror of him. But
Neale doubted the former statement. All business, good and bad, grew
in Benton. It was strange that as this attractive and notorious woman
conceived a terror of Larry, she formed an infatuation for Neale. He
would have been blind to it but for the dry humor of Place Hough, and
the amiable indifference of Ancliffe, who had anticipated a rival in
Neale. Their talk, like most talk, drifted through Neale's ears. What
did he care? Both Hough and Ancliffe began to loom large to Neale.
They wasted every day, every hour; and yet, underneath the one's cold,
passionless pursuit of gold, and the other's seren