“All the more reason for you to keep him,” Pat said coldly.

  “Now, I don’t take that as very neighborly. No sir, I sure don’t. I like the boy, Stevens. I’ve took a great shine to him. Just like he was my own. Yes sir. That’s one of the things I miss most—having a boy of my own.”

  Dock came whirling around a corner at a lope on his pinto pony. He swept past the two men without looking at them and rode at a headlong gallop back toward the Lazy Mare ranch.

  Pat watched him grimly. He said, “Maybe I don’t feel neighborly toward you, Crane. Bribin’ a boy Dock’s age with a black colt ain’t my way to start bein’ friends.”

  “Well, sir. I never thought of it that way. I sure didn’t. I s’posed you knew he’d come over for the colt.”

  Pat turned on him squarely. “I’m not blamin’ you for what Dock does—not yet. But I don’t want him hanging around here.”

  Crane shrugged and laughed. “That’s up to you, sheriff. But I don’t see any call to get wringy.”

  Pat controlled his temper with an effort. “We’ll forget it. What I come by for mostly was to see how you feel about sellin’ or leasin’ this ranch.”

  Gilbert Crane took out a match and bit it in two with his strong teeth. “I’m not interested a-tall. There was a one-eyed simpleton by here about a week ago that asked me the same question. Said he had figured on gettin’ the ranch to raise hawses on.” Crane laughed loudly. “Didn’t look like he had sense enough to raise his own hat if he met a lady.”

  “Happens,” said Pat darkly, “that was Ezra—my best friend.”

  “Oh.” Crane sobered immediately. “I’m sorry I said that. I reckon he’s all right but he sounded kind of simple-minded when he was talking to me.”

  “Ezra’s had his eye on this ranch ever since the owner died. He’d spoke for it to Judge Prink soon as the estate was settled. Ezra an’ me both figure it was a dirty deal for you to come in an’ grab it up under his nose.”

  “That’s business,” Crane ejaculated. “Didn’t have any option, did he?”

  Pat shook his head stubbornly. “He’d spoke for it. He ought’ve had the chance to meet yore price.”

  “I didn’t know anything about that.” Crane spoke truthfully. “I made my deal with Prink in Denver—with him acting as executor of the estate.”

  “All right,” said Pat sharply, “maybe you didn’t know Ezra had what you might call a prior claim. You know it now. How’d you like to sell out for a good profit?”

  Crane shook his head. “I like it here in Powder Valley. I’m bringing in some Morgan studs and I aim to build up a real herd of saddle stuff. I reckon I’ll just hang on to the K Bar for a spell anyway.”

  “How long,” asked Pat abruptly, “have you known Judge Prink?”

  “Quite some time.”

  “Old friend of yores, huh?”

  “Sort of,” Gilbert Crane agreed cautiously.

  “That’s what I reckoned. An’ he used his place as judge to sell you this ranch at yore own price.” Pat Stevens was mad clear through by this time. “Sounds mighty nigh crooked to me.”

  “Them are hard words,” Crane told him.

  “I mean ’em that way. How much did you pay for the ranch?”

  Crane was taken aback by the out-and-out question. Actually, of course, he hadn’t paid a cent for it. He didn’t know what method Prink had used to gain control of the property. The judge had arranged for him to take possession and pose as the owner, but Crane didn’t know anything more than that.

  He parried the sheriff’s question. “I don’t know the price is your business.”

  “The hell it ain’t,” Pat grated. “Bein’ executor, the judge is bound by law to get the most he could for the property for the heirs. If he took less from you than Ezra stood ready to pay, then the heirs got beat out of their just due.”

  “What’s all that to you? You one of the heirs?”

  “I’m the sheriff here. It’s my business to see that no crooked stuff is done. By law I got the right to know what you paid.” Pat didn’t know about the law on a matter like this, but he felt he was right and he never bothered much about legal technicalities when they got in the way of what was right.

  At that moment a man strolled around one of the sheds toward them. He was young and lean, and he carried himself with a swagger. A wide cartridge belt slanted downward on his right hip, carrying the cut-off holster that Dock had described to his father. His eyes were hard and his mouth wore an insolent smile as he approached the two men. He looked Pat Steven’s up and down, and his upper lip curled away from his teeth when he saw the lawman’s star on Pat’s vest. He asked Crane:

  “Havin’ trouble, boss?”

  Crane turned on him quickly and shook his head, forcing a placating smile to his lips. “No trouble, Gut-Luck. This here is Sheriff Stevens. You know, Dock Stevens’ daddy.”

  Gut-Luck Lasher acknowledged the introduction with a brief nod. He hooked his thumbs in his gun belt and asked coldly, “What’s he kickin’ up a rumpus about?”

  “He’s not kicking up a rumpus,” Crane hastened to reassure his impatient gunman.

  “Don’t go to no trouble on my account,” Pat told him angrily. “I don’t have to have my business explained to no two-bit gun slinger.”

  “Yo’re not packin’ a gun,” Gut-Luck said coldly.

  “Hasn’t been any skunks in the Valley that needed killin’ till you fellows moved in,” Pat told him. He saw Gut-Luck’s face harden at the insult, and he saw Crane shake his head at the hot-headed young fellow. He had a feeling there was something plenty queer going on here, but he couldn’t quite make out what it was all about.

  “Tim’s not here,” he heard Crane telling Gut-Luck in what seemed to be a warning voice. “He’s in town getting a bottle.”

  Pat shrugged and started to turn away from the pair. He told them, “This ain’t the end—of anything. You can tell yore lead-slingin’ hand that I’m gonna start wearin’ my guns from here on out, Crane, an’ I’m still waitin’ for an answer to that question I asked you. Maybe Judge Prink will have an answer to it.”

  He strode away angrily, around the bunkhouse and up to his horse in the front yard. He swung into the saddle and set out for Dutch Springs at a slow lope without looking back.

  7

  Pat Stevens was still plenty mad when he got into Dutch Springs. He kept his horse at a lope along Main Street, rode straight on to the jail and the sheriff’s office. He tied his horse outside and went into the deserted office, pulled out the bottom drawer of the desk and got out a cartridge belt and gun. It was a spare that he kept in town so he could buckle it on if trouble caught him unarmed.

  He didn’t know, now, just why he was arming himself before he went to see Judge Prink. He didn’t like to carry a gun unless he was preparing to make an arrest. He had an idea that a sheriff had a better chance to preserve peace if he didn’t go around carrying a six-shooter in front of everybody.

  But he had a funny feeling this Saturday afternoon that hell was getting ready to break loose. For one thing, he didn’t like the looks of Gut-Luck Lasher. He’d had plenty of experience with gun-fast hombres. They get a certain look in their eyes after they’ve killed a few men. It gets to be an obsession with them. It gives them an important feeling of carrying the power of life and death in their holsters. They get to feeling sort of like God, and look down with contempt on other men.

  Pat had seen that look in Gut-Luck Lasher’s eyes. He knew the hard-faced young man was a killer. He slowly buckled the stiff belt about his waist while he thought back over the scene at the K Bar ranch. None of it added up just right. Lasher had been honing for trouble, that was a cinch. And Crane had held him back. Well, that part made sense, Pat had to admit grudgingly to himself. Crane would be a fool if he let his hand gun-down an unarmed sheriff on his ranch.

  On the other hand, Pat had a feeling it had only been a sort of reprieve. Well, he had accepted the challenge. He’d told them clear enough that he’d be wearing his guns the next time they met. He settled the unfamiliar belt down over his hips and stalked out of the door.

  Judge Prink had his office at the end of the block near the jail. It was an old deserted store building that the judge had rented when he first came to Dutch Springs. He had a partition built all the way across the inside, and wooden bookshelves put up along the wall. There were three chairs inside the front part, and a door leading through the partition with the word PRIVATE on it in big black letters.

  The front part was vacant when Pat walked in. The door was closed and he could hear the murmur of voices from the private room in the back. He decided to wait awhile, and he sat down in one of the chairs. From the sound of the voices he could tell that the judge was talking to some woman, but he couldn’t tell who it was.

  He waited fifteen or twenty minutes before he heard a chair being pushed back in the rear room, then the sound of footsteps and the knob turning.

  The door into the rear office opened inward and he heard Judge Prink saying, “Of course, Mrs. Jenkins. I quite agree that a large property such as yours is quite a strain on a woman. I’m glad to have you come in whenever you feel the need of legal advice.”

  Then Pat heard the widow Jenkins’ voice: “I’m sure I’ll get help—from Beyond, you know. Tod was an unbeliever, but I’m sure he knows different now. I’m sure the mockingbird is a sign—don’t you think so?”

  “Perhaps, my dear lady. Perhaps. I don’t profess to understand these mysteries and if you can get help and advice from one who does—Ah! Sheriff Stevens.” The fat judge followed his bulbous belly through the door and saw Pat Stevens sitting there.

  Pat nodded. He got up and took off his hat when Mrs. Myra Jenkins came out. “Howdy, Mrs. Jenkins. Got yore cattle down from the high country yet?”

  “How-de-do, Sheriff Stevens.” Mrs. Jenkins was tying a pink sunbonnet under her sharp chin. “Jud’s managing things for me right well, I guess.”

  “Jud’s a mighty good cowman,” Pat told her gravely. “I’d take his advice on ’most anything, I reckon.”

  “Yes. He’s like Tod. He understands cows.” Mrs. Jenkins was pulling a pair of leather gauntlets on her withered hands. “But he’s so material and worldly. I—Have you met Mr. Deever, sheriff?”

  Pat said, “No.”

  Mrs. Jenkins said, “He’s so different. Thank you for your advice, Judge Prink.” She went out the door.

  The judge closed it behind her. Pat sat down and asked abruptly. “What kind of advice was Myra after?”

  The judge turned and pursed his pink lips at the Powder Valley sheriff. “I make it a point not to discuss the affairs of my clients.”

  “You’ve got no right to have private clients since you’ve been appointed District Judge,” Pat told him. “It ain’t fitting.”

  Judge Prink’s eyes became smaller behind the puffy flesh on his cheeks. “Did you come here to discuss legal ethics with me?”

  Pat said, “Yes.”

  The judge exhaled softly and said, “Ah.” His eyes glittered but he kept a smile on his round fat face. He settled himself in a creaking chair and carefully placed a dimpled hand on each fat knee. “Aren’t you forgetting that you’re only the sheriff? Mrs. Jenkins came to me for advice and I gave it to her—as I will to any citizen who requests it.”

  Pat waved his hand and said, “I didn’t come here to talk about Myra Jenkins an’ her crazy ideas on religion. I stopped by the K Bar ranch on my way into town.”

  Judge Prink said, “Indeed?”

  “Yeh. Crane admitted to me that you and him fixed up a private deal for him to take over the ranch—without you gettin’ Ezra’s bid on it.”

  The judge chuckled gently. His fat jowls quivered and his belly heaved up and down. “I was appointed public executor of the estate.”

  “That’s why you hadn’t no right to fix up a deal like that.”

  “The heirs are satisfied with the price they received.”

  “Maybe. But do they know there was another bidder—that maybe Ezra would of paid more?” Pat demanded angrily.

  The judge lifted one fat hand and chuckled all over. “Ezra? I checked his financial standing, of course. I really didn’t consider him a responsible bidder.”

  “The hell you didn’t.” Pat’s face was dark with anger. “Him an’ me have always been pardners—along with Sam Sloan. I guess the three of us could have raked up enough money to buy the K Bar, lock, stock an’ barrel.”

  “But I didn’t understand that he represented a syndicate. I thought he was acting in his own behalf, and I made what I considered the most advantageous deal for the heirs.”

  “How much?” Pat asked shortly.

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “How much did Crane pay for the ranch?”

  The judge shook his head from side to side. “If you were familiar with the law you wouldn’t ask that question, sheriff. I’m accountable to the heirs and no one else. As long as they’re satisfied—” Judge Prink made another gesture with his fat hand and returned it to his knee.

  Pat said, “Maybe it’s legal but it sure ain’t right. Ezra had spoke to you first.”

  The judge said incisively, “As long as it was legal you have no complaint.”

  Pat got up slowly. Unconsciously his right hand strayed down toward the gun butt at his hip. He twisted the brim of his hat and said, “We’ve got along mighty good here in Powder Valley without havin’ no lawyers tell us what was legal an’ what wasn’t. We never bothered to put some things in writin’ because we always trusted a man to do what was right. Seems like that’s all changed now.”

  The judge rocked back and forth gently. His eyes were slitted so Pat could see only a faint gleam from them, but they reminded him of the malevolent eyes of a Gila monster. “I don’t like what you’re saying, Stevens. If you have a legal complaint, make it in a legal manner.”

  Pat snorted loudly. “To the District Judge, I reckon.”

  “Why yes,” Prink purred. “The district court is the proper place.”

  “Looks like yo’re fixed up pretty good—settin’ as District Judge an’ passin’ on what you do as public executor.”

  “It’s the law,” Judge Prink told him. “In part 3, chapter 18 of the Civil Code—”

  “Maybe,” Pat interrupted him. “But none of us here in the Valley ever read as far as chapter eighteen, I reckon.” He turned and strode out of the judge’s office, slamming the door behind him like an angry schoolboy and feeling a whole lot like one.

  He went down the street, nodding grimly to friends and neighbors who gave him a cheery greeting, paying no attention to their looks of surprise as he passed them by without really knowing whom he was passing.

  Things had come to a hell of a mess in Powder Valley, he told himself angrily, when they let a stranger come in with his law books and start telling them what was what. He’d been afraid of something like this all along. Too much civilization, that was it. He felt completely frustrated and depressed, and was absurdly conscious of the gun swinging at his hip. A gun wasn’t any good when a man started quoting law books to you.

  He was striding past Mr. Winters’ general store when the door opened suddenly and Sally stepped out with her arms full of groceries.

  Pat bumped into his wife and almost bowled her over before he saw her.

  Sally started a laughing comment on his clumsiness, then her eyes widened when she saw his angry face and the gun strapped around his waist. She cried out, “Oh Pat! What is it?”

  His face softened and he bent down to pick up a sack of groceries he’d knocked out of her arms. “I wasn’t looking where I was going,” he muttered, avoiding her eyes. “It’s—everything’s all right.”

  “But you’re wearing your gun, Pat. Did you have trouble at the K Bar?”

  “Nothing to talk about. I packed Dock off home where he belonged.” Pat took another sack from her arms and carried them to the back of the surrey at the hitchrack in front of the store.

  Sally gave him the others to stow away, watching him anxiously for a clue to the grimness of his face. When all the groceries were put away, she asked, “Why don’t you ride on home with me if you’ve finished your business? You can lead your saddlehorse behind.”

  Pat said, “You’d better drive on. I’m not quite through in town.”

  “I can wait for you. Go on down to the Gold Eagle and get a few drinks, if you want. I’m not in any hurry.”

  Pat said gently, “It isn’t a few drinks I’m stayin’ in for, Sally. I got to do some checkin’ up on a couple of things.”

  “Have you seen Judge Prink about the ranch yet?”

  “Yes. I saw him.”

  “Can you get it for Ezra?”

  “I’m afraid not, Sally. Seems like Crane’s got a legal right to keep it if he wants.” Pat took his wife tightly by the arm and helped her up into the surrey. “You drive on home, honey. Tell Dock to get the chores done up.”

  He stood on the boardwalk and watched her drive away, not quite knowing why he had acted as he had. He didn’t know what kind of trouble he anticipated, nor why he had insisted on staying in town instead of riding back with her and leading his horse. There was a rankling feeling of indecision inside him. He turned and went on slowly down the boardwalk toward the Gold Eagle Saloon.

  The loud blast of gunfire came out from the saloon just as he reached the swinging doors. He shouldered the doors open and drew his gun as he went in. A group of ranchers stood at the bar looking at an old man who swayed back and forth on wide-spread legs in the middle of the floor. The old man had a smoking six-gun in his hand and he was waving it in the air and laughing. Pat had never seen him before.

  He stopped laughing when he saw the star on Pat’s vest. Timothy O’Connor’s bleary eyes narrowed cunningly and he swung the weapon down to draw a bead on the sheriff’s stomach. He quavered drunkenly, “Don’t come no nearer. Not a step, d’yuh hear me?”