he never gave warning of his purpose. The
man was said to be a crack shot, quick as chain lightning, without the
slightest regard for human life. He moved furtively, spoke little when
sober, and had no scruples against assassination from ambush. Nobody in
the Southwest was more feared than he.

This man crossed the path of Clanton when the herd was about fifty miles
from the Fort.

The beeves had been grazing forward slowly all afternoon and were
loose-bedded early for the night. Cowpunchers are as full of larks as
schoolboys on a holiday. Now they were deciding a bet as to whether
Tim McGrath, a red-headed Irish boy, could ride a vicious gelding that
had slipped into the remuda. Billie Prince roped the front feet of the
horse and threw him. The animal was blindfolded and saddled.

Doubtful of his own ability to stick to the seat, Tim maneuvered the
buckskin over to the heavy sand before he mounted. The gelding went
sun-fishing into the air, then got his head between his legs and gave his
energy to stiff-legged bucking. He whirled as he plunged forward, went
round and round furiously, and unluckily for Tim reached the hard ground.
The jolts jerked the rider forward and back like a jack-knife without a
spring. He went flying over the head of the bronco to the ground.

The animal, red-eyed with hate, lunged for the helpless puncher. A second
time Billie's rope snaked forward. The loop fell true over the head of
the gelding, tightened, and swung the outlaw to one side so that his
hoofs missed the Irishman. Tim scrambled to his feet and fled for safety.

The cowpunchers whooped joyously. In their lives near-tragedy was too
frequent to carry even a warning. Dad Wrayburn hummed a stanza of
"Windy Bill" for the benefit of McGrath:

"Bill Garrett was a cowboy, an' he could ride, you bet; He said the bronc
he couldn't bust was one he hadn't met. He was the greatest talker that
this country ever saw Until his good old rim-fire went a-driftin' down
the draw."

Two men had ridden up unnoticed and were watching with no obvious
merriment the contest. Now one of them spoke.

"Where can I find Homer Webb?"

Dad turned to the speaker, a lean man with a peg-leg, brown as a Mexican,
hard of eye and mouth. The gray bristles on the unshaven face advertised
him as well on into middle age. Wrayburn recognized the man as "Peg-Leg"
Warren, one of the most troublesome nesters on the river.

"He's around here somewhere." Dad turned to