ccept the wrath of God.

Let it not be thought that Jerry Strann was a solitary like his brother.
When he went out for a frolic the young men of the community gathered
around him, for Jerry paid all scores and the red-eye flowed in his path
like wine before the coming of Bacchus; where Jerry went there was never
a dull moment, and young men love action. So it happened that when he
rode into Brownsville this day he was the leader of a cavalcade. Rumour
rode before them, and doors were locked and windows were darkened, and
men sat in the darkness within with their guns across their knees. For
Brownsville lay at the extreme northern tip of the triangle and it was
rarely visited by Jerry; and it is well established that men fear the
unfamiliar more than the known.

As has been said, Jerry headed the train of revellers, partially because
it was most unwise to cut in ahead of Jerry and partially because there
was not a piece of horseflesh in the Three B's which could outfoot his
chestnut. It was a gelding out of the loins of the north wind and sired
by the devil himself, and its spirit was one with the spirit of Jerry
Strann; perhaps because they both served one master. The cavalcade came
with a crash of racing hoofs in a cloud of dust. But in the middle of
the street Jerry raised his right arm stiffly overhead with a whoop and
brought his chestnut to a sliding stop; the cloud of dust rolled lazily
on ahead. The young men gathered quickly around the leader, and there
was silence as they waited for him to speak--a silence broken only by
the wheezing of the horses, and the stench of sweating horseflesh was
in every man's nostrils.

"Who owns that hoss?" asked Jerry Strann, and pointed.

He had stopped just opposite O'Brien's hotel, store, blacksmith shop,
and saloon, and by the hitching rack was a black stallion. Now, there
are some men who carry tidings of their inward strength stamped on their
foreheads and written in their eyes. In times of crises crowds will turn
to such men and follow them as soldiers follow a captain; for it is
patent at a glance that this is a man of men. It is likewise true that
there are horses which stand out among their fellows, and this was such
a horse. He was such a creature that, if he had been led to a barrier,
the entire crowd at the race track would rise as one man and say: "What
is that horse?" There were points in which some critics would find
fault; most of the men of the mountain-desert