With such money offered so freely, many of the ranchers had borrowed from him to buy fripperies and things they didn’t really need, planning vaguely to repay the money from increased receipts, and Pat feared they wouldn’t be able to meet their obligations when they came due. He felt that Harlow hoped it would work out that way, that it was the essence of his plan to eventually obtain control of the entire Valley, but you couldn’t openly accuse the man of that. There wasn’t anything dishonest about it. If people wanted to be fools and borrow more than they could pay back, you couldn’t blame the lender for being businesslike and foreclosing on the mortgages to protect his investment.

  Actually, nothing like this had happened yet. Eustis Harlow had been established in the Valley only six months, and he was well liked by most of his neighbors. But since his coming there had been a gradual spread of dissatisfaction among the small ranchers. Up to the time of his coming they had been well pleased with things as they were. They hadn’t, in short, known they were missing anything. They were content to go along with their small holdings and the moderate prosperity they had known for years. He had opened their eyes to undreamed of possibilities and joggled their suppressed ambitions. Each man began to dream of getting hold of more land and expanding, and they began to look contemptuously at the few like Pat Stevens who refused to borrow money from Harlow and were content to go along as they had for many years.

  These were the thoughts that raced through Pat’s mind as he went toward the corrals. He wasn’t really conscious of them. He knew only a deep fear that the security of his beloved Valley was somehow threatened, and he couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that Mr. Eustis Harlow was at the bottom of it.

  He had sort of looked for an explosion last month when he helped Ezra get hold of the Spangler ranch, a twenty-section spread lying directly east of Harlow’s present holdings. He knew that Harlow coveted those twenty sections, and when Ezra bought the ranch out from under the Texan’s nose for less than Harlow would have paid, Pat expected him to be angry about it.

  But Harlow wasn’t the sort to cry over spilt milk. He laughingly told Pat so one day soon after the deal was finished when they happened to meet in the main street of Dutch Springs. He laughed boomingly and shook his head at the sheriff, and said, “I hear you and Ezra put one over on me in buying the Spangler ranch.”

  “How come?” asked Pat. “Spangler wanted to sell out an’ Ezra met his price.”

  “With the help of a slight loan from you, eh Stevens?”

  Pat shrugged. “Ezra an’ me have been friends a long time, Harlow.”

  “You put over a smart deal,” the Texan acknowledged. “Tell Ezra any time he gets a notion to sell out he can make a nice profit by coming to me.”

  Pat said he would tell Ezra. Well, that’s all that had been said. Reviewing the incident later, Pat didn’t know exactly why Harlow’s attitude in the matter irritated him. He tried to be honest about it. He had to admit his irritation probably came from the fact that Harlow had been so damned decent about being outslickered. He would have liked it better if Harlow had been angry and threatened him. He was just too smooth, Pat decided. He had a way of disarming you and not leaving you anything to strike back at.

  Ezra was leading a big-boned blazed-face sorrel out of the corral to the saddle shed when Pat got there. He led the sorrel past Pat and said, “Hi,” without turning his one eye in Pat’s direction. He took a bridle down from a nail and busied himself fitting the curb bit in the horse’s mouth, just as though he didn’t know Pat had come down to have a talk with him.

  Pat lit a cigarette and spun the match away into the velvety darkness. “Ridin’ in to town, huh?”

  “Yep. Thought I would.”

  “The other boys going?”

  “I dunno.” Ezra threw a saddle blanket over the sorrel’s back.

  Pat took a deep drag on his cigarette. He asked, “What’s it all about, Ezra?”

  “All what?”

  “The meeting in town. The one you’re goin’ to.”

  “Who said I wuz goin’ to a meetin’?”

  “Come off it,” Pat said half angrily. “Something’s eatin’ on you, Ezra. What is it?”

  Ezra tossed a heavy saddle over the sorrel. He ducked his head to reach under the animal’s belly and get hold of the center-fire girth swinging on the other side. He pushed the end of the latigo strap through the iron loop and pulled the girth tight. “You listenin’ to what Dock says?” he scoffed at last.

  Pat sighed. “You never could keep a secret from me, Ezra. Right now it’s fightin’ to come out. It’ll turn sour in yore belly if you don’t tell me ’fore you ride off.”

  Ezra buckled the latigo strap carefully. “What’d you say if I tole you you’d mebbe be better off not askin’ so damn many questions?” He tried to sound angry at Pat, but managed only to sound mournful.

  “I’d say I’m ridin’ in with you to get my own answers. Wait a minute till I throw a saddle on the gray.” Pat turned toward the corral, picking a short coiled catchrope off a hook on the wall.

  “Wait a minute,” Ezra growled gruffly.

  Pat stopped and waited.

  “Cain’t you take my word fer it there ain’t no cause tuh git riled up?”

  Pat said, “Not when you don’t hardly taste yore son-of-a-gun an’ don’t wait for a piece of peach pie.”

  Ezra sighed loudly and mournfully. “I was scairt you wouldn’t. Aw right, there is a meetin’ tuhnight, Pat. In the main room of the courthouse.”

  Pat remained silent. He waited for Ezra to go on.

  “I reckoned I’d sorta ride in tuh see what happened,” Ezra went on weakly.

  “Who passed out the invites to the meetin’?”

  “Well now, that’s a funny thing. Seems like no one don’t rightly know. There’s bin word passed around there’d be free beer, an’ they do say Eustis Harlow is footin’ the bill.”

  Pat stiffened as he heard that name. He wasn’t surprised though. He’d known all along it had something to do with Harlow. He asked quietly, “What’s the purpose of the meeting, Ezra?”

  “That’s … what I didn’t wanta tell you.”

  “I figgered that,” Pat said angrily. “What is it?”

  “I’ve heered some talk about mebbe it was time we wuz ’lectin’ a new sheriff here in thuh Valley,” Ezra admitted unhappily. “I don’ know fer shore that’s what the meetin’s about tuhnight, but it’d be my guess it is. That’s why I reckoned you wouldn’t wanta come.”

  “Why not?” Pat’s voice was bleak. “Looks to me like I’m sort of a int’rested party.”

  “Don’t you do it, Pat,” Ezra begged him. “Me an’ Sam Sloan an’ some of the other boys figger on settin’ in. We’ll see you git a square deal.”

  Pat shrugged his shoulders slowly. He turned away without another word and started back to the ranch house. Ezra stared after him, shaking his shaggy red head worriedly. Danged if you could tell about Pat Stevens. Now, Ezra would have thought Pat would be mad as a wet hen when he learned how some of his neighbors were meeting to vote on taking the sheriff’s badge away from him. That’s why Ezra didn’t want him to go. He was afraid Pat might kick up a rumpus and there’d be shooting. Instead of that, Pat was walking off with his tail between his legs. It shore was hard to figger him out.

  Ezra sighed and swung into the saddle. He rode to the bunkhouse and called out gruffly, “You yahoos ready tuh ride?”

  Pete came to the door. “We got our hawses saddled an’ tied down to the fence. Didn’t want thuh boss to ketch us ridin’ off.”

  “He won’t ketch you,” Ezra grunted. “Hit thuh saddle and le’s ride. Pat’ll need all thuh friends he’s got in town tuhnight.”

  Sally was clearing up the supper dishes when Pat walked back in the front door. She whirled to look at him with startled eyes, then smiled when she saw the quiet look that had driven the grimness from his face. “Everything’s all right,” she guessed happily. “Oh, Pat, I was so afraid when you went out looking like that.”

  “What were you afraid of?”

  “I don’t know,” she confessed miserably. “After the way Ezra acted. What is it about a meeting?”

  “Nothin’ much. Some of the boys gettin’ together to sop up some beer. Know where my badge is, Sally?”

  “Are you ridin’ in to town, Dad?” Dock stuck his head in through an inner doorway. “Can I go with you?”

  “No, Dock,” Sally said firmly. “A bunch of men will be drinking beer. I don’t know about your badge, Pat. You’re supposed to wear it all the time, you know,” she added in mild reproof.

  Pat said gently, “I reckon I better take it in with me tonight.”

  “I’ll look in the bedroom and see if I can find it.” Sally turned away. She hesitated and asked in a different tone, “Do you think there’ll be trouble?”

  Pat said, “Why no, Sally. I don’t reckon so.” He waited in the living room while she went to see if she could find the shining silver star which Mr. Winters and other staunch friends had pressed on him that black night a few years ago when Ed and Maria Grimes were foully murdered.

  There was a bloodstain on the silver star that night when Pat accepted it and pinned it on his vest, and he didn’t wash the blood off until Ed Grimes’ death was avenged.

  Sally came back with the gleaming symbol of lawdom in her outstretched palm, and Pat looked at it queerly as he took it from her.

  A lot of things had happened since he’d cleaned Ed Grimes’ blood off the star and agreed to keep on wearing it as long as his neighbors felt he was the best man to continue maintaining peace in the Valley.

  He took it from Sally and absently blew his breath on the shining silver surface and then rubbed it off on his sleeve. He smiled down at her, noting the look of pride on her face as he carefully pinned the star to his shirt.

  It meant a lot to Sally. Women were sort of funny about things like that. Now him, he’d be glad to be rid of it. He had never felt quite right being a lawman. Seemed like he was sort of setting himself up to be better than his fellow men, and he didn’t feel like that at all.

  He put his arm about her shoulders and tightened it there. He promised, “I won’t be late.”

  “I’m glad you’re not wearing your guns,” she breathed. “I never worry until I see you buckle them on, Pat.”

  He tipped her face up and kissed the lips that had grown sweeter to him as the years went by, then turned away and went down to the corral to rope out his gray saddle horse.

  3

  The hitching rail in front of the new Powder Valley courthouse was lined with saddle horses. Down the street the rail in front of the Gold Eagle Saloon was similarly lined. This was unusual for an evening in the middle of the week and was in response to the word that had been quietly passed around about an important meeting of all male citizens in the Valley. A lot of the riders had drifted in out of curiosity, and others were drawn to the meeting by the rumors of free beer in the courthouse yard. Others, who were indebted to Eustis Harlow in one way or another had received instructions practically amounting to orders for them to be present with all their hands.

  No one seemed to know exactly why the meeting had been called, nor what it was about. There were all sorts of rumors going the rounds. The most persistent of these was that Pat Stevens had decided to resign as sheriff and the meeting had been called to select his successor. A lot of the ranchers didn’t believe that, because they knew Pat well and hadn’t heard him say anything about resigning, but everyone seemed agreed that the meeting had something to do with the office of sheriff or the enforcement of the lax laws of the community.

  At this stage of its development, Powder Valley had a rather peculiar system of self-government based on expediency rather than on a strict interpretation of state laws. There were no actual defined boundaries of the county, nor were there any duly elected county officials. Powder Valley was an isolated community separated from its neighbors by mountains on all sides, and for years past it had been customary to settle any differences of opinion among its inhabitants by a meeting such as had been called for tonight. With no complex questions of law to vex them, a majority vote was all that was required to make a decision, and the minority always swung into line with the rest when they found they were defeated. It was actually a practical demonstration of pure democracy in action, and the people of the Valley had lived together peaceably a good many years with no real cleavage of opinion.

  The crowd around the two barrels of beer set up in front of the courthouse was orderly and good-natured. Most of the men had known most of the others for years and they made the meeting into a sort of social occasion for exchanging news about their families and information about the condition of pasturage and the new calf crop.

  Eustis Harlow was very much in evidence among the group around the beer barrels. He was a big man with a hearty voice and a genial manner. He wore a big white Stetson and a red silk shirt with a leather vest decorated with heavy conchos of Mexican gold. He had a wide hand-carved belt with a big gold buckle in front, and the bottoms of his pants were tucked into small hand-made boots with figures formed on them by ornamental white stitching. His big-roweled spurs had little copper bells on them that tinkled as he moved, and a big, square-cut diamond glistened from a ring on his hand.

  Yet all this display in contrast to the shabby workclothing of the other ranchers didn’t make Eustis Harlow seem affected or overdressed. He was a man who could wear that sort of thing and get away with it. He had broad shoulders and big, strong hands, and his face was weather-beaten by the Texas sun and wind. He looked like a man who had fought hard and worked hard to reach his present position at the top, and like one who intended to stay there. His gray eyes had a look of cold appraisal even while he was laughing heartily, and his blunt chin was aggressively square.

  There were some who didn’t like Harlow, and a few who feared him, but mostly the citizens of Powder Valley felt they were lucky that such a man had sold out his huge holdings in Texas and come to Colorado to re-establish himself. As they said approvingly to one another while they waited for the meeting to open, he was the kind of man who made things hum when he was around. He didn’t sit back and let any grass grow under his feet, by golly. Even those who owed him money and didn’t know how they would pay off their mortgages thought it had been a good thing for the Valley when Harlow decided to settle there.

  When they began drifting into the courthouse to take seats on the long wooden benches in the big meeting room, Harlow was at the door with a handshake and a brief word for each one who entered.

  Somehow, he managed to give the impression that he was the host and that it was his courthouse, his meeting. All of them knew they had been drinking his beer, of course, so it wasn’t difficult to go a step further and accept his leadership in Valley affairs.

  Even the old-timers like John Boyd and Mr. Winters who resented Eustis Harlow and felt he was a menace to their Valley found it impossible to put their finger on anything Harlow said or did to put him in the wrong. There wasn’t any reason why he shouldn’t stand at the door and shake hands with them as they went in if he wanted to. It was all open and aboveboard. But it put them at a disadvantage, and they felt it and Harlow knew they felt it. The only thing you could do if you didn’t like it was to stay away from the meeting, and that would be playing right into Harlow’s hands. So they all went in and sat on the benches, inwardly writhing at the masterly way in which Harlow handled the situation but not knowing how to circumvent his tactics.

  When the last booted and sweaty rancher was inside, Eustis Harlow left his place at the door and went up to the long pine table in front of the room. He stood negligently with his fingertips touching the table, and he addressed them bluntly:

  “I’m not an orator and I don’t aim to do any orating tonight. I called this meeting to find out what we’re going to do about a new sheriff in Powder Valley.”

  Mr. Winters was sitting in the front row. He ran the general store in Dutch Springs and was the postmaster, and for years he had sort of unofficially run things in Powder Valley. John Boyd, Pat’s nearest neighbor, sat on Winters’ right. He was a stringy, taciturn man who would have gone to hell and back for Pat Stevens. Ezra was on Winters’ left, and beyond him was Sam Sloan. Sam was one of the few men in the room who had packed a gun to the meeting. As Pony Express rider, Sam always rode his route armed, and he didn’t take his .45 off while he was in town because he would have felt undressed without it.

  Ezra and Sam and Boyd stirred uneasily and looked at Mr. Winters when Harlow made his blunt opening statement.

  The storekeeper got to his feet at once. He said mildly, “I reckon most of us didn’t know we were going to do anything about getting a new sheriff. I hadn’t heard about Pat Stevens turning in his badge yet.”

  There was a shuffling of feet and a murmur of agreement from the benches behind him.

  “Perhaps he hasn’t turned in his badge,” Harlow assented. “I’ve been checking up and I don’t believe we have to wait for Stevens to resign. The way I see it, he was put in office by a majority vote and I guess he can be put out the same way. By a majority of us that are here tonight.”

  Winters had remained standing. “Why, I guess that’s right,” he agreed. His voice was incredulous. “Do you reckon we’re going to vote Pat Stevens out of office? After all he’s done for the Valley?”

  “That’s exactly what I hope you’re going to do. I know you’re all friends of Stevens’. I like him myself. He’s a fine man and I don’t deny he’s done some mighty fine things in the past. But that’s in the past. We can’t afford to keep a sheriff on his past reputation. We need one that will do things now.”

  John Boyd got up angrily. “Are you hintin’ that Pat ain’t makin’ us a good sheriff?”

  “I’m not hinting at anything,” Eustis Harlow told him equably. “I’m saying it right out loud in meeting.” He showed his white teeth in a wide smile. “I’m not the kind of a man that makes hints. I believe in coming straight out and saying my piece.” He thudded his right fist into the palm of his left hand for emphasis. “I’m losing cattle off my ranch every day. Expensive, blooded stock. Sheriff Stevens hasn’t done a single thing to stop the rustling though I’ve appealed to him time and again. I can’t stay here and go on with my plans to build this up into a real cow-country if that sort of thing goes on.”