e knew that her father's resentment was
based on no abstract love of law and order. It had back of it no feeling
that crime had been committed or justice outraged. The frontier was in
its roistering youth, full of such effervescing spirits that life was the
cheapest thing it knew. Every few days some unfortunate was buried on
Boot Hill, a victim of his own inexpertness with the six-shooter. The
longhorned cattle of Texas were wearing broad trails to the north and the
northwest and such towns as Los Portales were on the boom. Chap-clad
punchers galloped through the streets at all hours of the day and
night letting out their joyous "Eee-yip-eee." The keys of Tolleson's and
half a dozen other gambling places had long since been lost, for the
doors were never closed to patrons. At games of chance the roof was the
limit, in the expressive phrase of the country. Guns cracked at the
slightest difference of opinion. It was bad form to use the word
"murder." The correct way to speak of the result of a disagreement was to
refer to it as "a killing."

Law lay for every man in a holster on his own hip. Snaith recognized this
and accepted it. He was ready to "bend a gun" himself if occasion called
for it. What he objected to in this particular killing was the personal
affront to him. One of Webb's men had deliberately and defiantly killed
two of his riders when the town was full of his employees. The man had
walked into Tolleson's--a place which he, Snaith, practically owned
himself--and flung down the gauntlet to the whole Lazy S M outfit. It was
a flagrant insult and Wallace Snaith proposed to see that it was avenged.

"I'm going duck-hunting to-morrow, dad," Lee told him. "I'll likely be up
before daylight, but I'll try not to disturb you. If you hear me
rummaging around in the pantry, you'll know what for."

He grunted assent, full of the grievance that was rankling in his mind.
Lee came and went as she pleased. She was her own mistress and he made no
attempt to chaperon her activities.

The light had not yet begun to sift into the sky next morning when Lee
dressed and tiptoed to the kitchen. She carried saddlebags with her and
into the capacious pockets went tea, coffee, flour, corn meal, a flask of
brandy, a plate of cookies, and a slab of bacon. An old frying-pan and a
small stew kettle joined the supplies; also a little package of "yerb"
medicine prepared by Aunt Becky as a specific for fevers.

Lee walked through the si