e didn't."

"Of course he says so," replied the older woman indignantly. "Why
wouldn't he say so? But Dad Wrayburn was there and saw it all. There has
been a lot too much promiscuous killing and he's one of the worst of the
lot, your Jim Clanton is. Jimmie-Go-Get-'Em, indeed! I hope the law goes
and gets him now it has a chance."

The opinion of Lee's aunt was in accord with the general sentiment.
Washington County had within the past year suffered a change of heart. It
had put behind its back the wild and reckless days of its youth when
every man was a law to himself. Bar-room orators talked virtuously of law
and order. They said it behooved the county to live down its evil
reputation as the worst in the United States. Times had changed. The
watchword now should be progress. It ought no longer to be a
recommendation to a man that he could bend a six-gun surer and quicker
than other folks. "Movers" in white-topped wagons were settling up the
country. A railroad had pushed in to Live-Oaks. There was a lot of talk
about Eastern capital becoming interested in irrigation and mining. It
was high time to remember that Live-Oaks and Los Portales were not now
frontier camps, but young cities.

Since Live-Oaks had been good for so short a time it wanted to prove by a
shining example how it abhorred the lawlessness of its youth. At this
inopportune moment Clanton gave himself up to be tried for the murder of
Homer Webb.

When the news spread that Clanton had been given a change of venue and
was to be tried at Santa Fe, the citizens of Live-Oaks were distinctly
annoyed. It was known that the sheriff had always been a good friend of
the accused man. The whisper passed that if he ever took Go-Get-'Em Jim
out of the county the killer would be given a chance to escape.

Into town from the chaparral drifted the enemies Clanton had made during
his career as a gunman. Yankie and Albeen and Dumont and Bancock moved to
and fro in the crowds at the different gambling places and saloons. Even
Roush, who in the past three years had never given young Clanton an
opportunity to meet him face to face, stole furtively into the tendejons
of the Mexican quarter and spent money freely in treating. Among the
natives Go-Get-'Em Jim was in ill-repute for shooting a bad man named
Juan Ortez who had attempted to terrorize the town while on a spree.

"We're spendin' a lot of good money on this job. We'd ought to pull it
off," Dumont whispered to Albe