. Sneed stepped close to the peace officer and
laughed, his face flushed with foolish elation at his strength.

"Do you see 'em?" he asked, ironically, indicating his men by a sweep of
his arm. "Do you think you could shoot me?"

The reply was instantaneous. The last word had hardly left his lips before
he peered blankly into the cold, unreasoning muzzle of a Colt, and the
sheriff's voice softly laughed up above him. The cowboys stood as if
turned to stone, not daring to risk their foreman's life by a move, for
they did not understand the sheriff's methods of arguments, never having
become thoroughly acquainted with him.

"You know me better now, Sneed," Shields remarked quietly as he slipped
his Colt into its holster. "I'm running the law end of the game and I'll
keep right on running it as I d----d please while I'm called sheriff,
understand?"

Sneed was a brave man, and he thoroughly appreciated the clean-cut
courage which had directed the sheriff's act, and he knew, then, that
Shields would keep his word. He involuntarily stepped back and intently
regarded the face above him, seeing a not unpleasant countenance, although
it was tanned by the suns and beaten by the weather of fifty years. The
hazel eyes twinkled and the thin lips twitched in that quiet humor for
which the man was famed; yet underlying the humor was stern, unyielding
determination.

"You're shore nervy, Sheriff," at length remarked the foreman. "The boys
are loco, but I'll try to hold them."

"You'll hold them, or bury them," responded the sheriff, and turning to
his companion he said: "Now I'm with you, Charley. So long, Sneed," he
pleasantly called over his shoulder as if there had been no unpleasant
disagreement.

"So long, Sheriff," replied the foreman, looking after the departing pair
and hardly free from his astonishment. Then he turned to his men: "You
heard what he said, and you saw what he did. You keep out of this, or
I'll make you d----d sorry, if he don't. If The Orphan comes your way,
all right and good. But you let his trail religiously alone, do you hear?"

CHAPTER V

BILL JUSTIFIES HIS CREATION

Bill Howland careened along the stage route, rapidly leaving Ford's
Station in his rear. He rolled through the arroyo on alternate pairs of
wheels, splashed through the Limping Water, leaving it roiled and
muddy, and shot up the opposite bank with a rush. Before him was a
stretch of a dozen miles, level as a billiard table,