attle, handled with ease and a certain
exultation by men who had studied nothing but this thing. Horsemen
clattered up and down the street day and night--riding, whether drunk
or sober, with the incomparable confidence of the greatest horse
country the world has ever known. Everywhere was the bustle of a
unique commerce, mingled with a colossal joy of life. The smokes from
the dugouts and shacks now began to grow still more numerous in the
region round about, but there were not many homes, because there were
not many women. For this reason men always kill each other very much
more gladly and regularly than they do in countries where there are
many women, it appearing to them, perhaps, that in a womanless country
life is not worth the living. A few "hay ranches," a few fields even
of "sod corn," now began to show here and there, index of a time to
come, but for the most part this was yet a land of one sex and one
occupation. The cattle trade monopolized the scene. The heaps of
buffalo bones were now neglected. The long-horned cattle of the white
men were coming in to take the place of the curved-horned cattle of the
Indians. The curtain of the cattle drama of the West was now rung up
full.

The sheriff finished the cleaning of his six-shooter and tossed the
oiled rag into the drawer of the table where he kept the warrants. He
slipped the heavy weapon into the scabbard at his right leg and saw
that the string held the scabbard firmly to his trouser-leg, so that he
might draw the gun smoothly and without hindrance from its sheath. He
knew that the new bad man wore two guns, each adjusted in a similar
manner; but it was always Bill Watson's contention (while he was alive)
that a man with one gun was as good as a man with two. Sheriff Watson
made no claim to being a two-handed shot. He was a simple,
unpretentious man; not a heroic figure as he stood, his weight resting
on the sides of his feet, looking out of the window down the long and
wind-swept street of Ellisville.

Gradually the gaze of the sheriff focused, becoming occupied with the
figure of a horseman whose steady riding seemed to have a purpose other
than that of merely showing his joy in living and riding. This rider
passed other riders without pausing. He came up the street at a gallop
until opposite the office door, where he jerked up his horse sharply
and sprang from the saddle. As he came into the room he pulled off his
hat and mopped his fac