!

"You're going to hear me call a spade a spade. Your office is a farce.
In the two years you've been mayor you've never arrested one rustler.
Strange, when Linrock's a nest for rustlers! You've never sent a
prisoner to Del Rio, let alone to Austin. You have no jail.

"There have been nine murders since you took office, innumerable street
fights and hold-ups. _Not one arrest!_ But you have ordered arrests for
trivial offenses, and have punished these out of all proportion.

"There have been law-suits in your court--suits over water rights,
cattle deals, property lines. Strange how in these law-suits, you or
Wright or other men close to you were always involved! Stranger how it
seems the law was stretched to favor your interests!"

Steele paused in his cold, ringing speech. In the silence, both outside
and inside the hall, could be heard the deep breathing of agitated men.

I would have liked to search for possible satisfaction on the faces of
any present, but I was concerned only with Sampson. I did not need to
fear that any man might draw on Steele.

Never had I seen a crowd so sold, so stiff, so held! Sampson was indeed
a study. Yet did he betray anything but rage at this interloper?

"Sampson, here's plain talk for you and Linrock to digest," went
on Steele. "I don't accuse you and your court of dishonesty. I
say--_strange_! Law here has been a farce. The motive behind all
this laxity isn't plain to me--yet. But I call your hand!"

Chapter 3

SOUNDING THE TIMBER

When Steele left the hall, pushing Snell before him, making a lane
through the crowd, it was not any longer possible to watch everybody.

Yet now he seemed to ignore the men behind him. Any friend of Snell's
among the vicious element might have pulled a gun. I wondered if Steele
knew how I watched those men at his back--how fatal it would have been
for any of them to make a significant move.

No--I decided that Steele trusted to the effect his boldness had
created. It was this power to cow ordinary men that explained so many of
his feats; just the same it was his keenness to read desperate men, his
nerve to confront them, that made him great.

The crowd followed Steele and his captive down the middle of the main
street and watched him secure a team and buckboard and drive off on the
road to Sanderson.

Only then did that crowd appear to realize what had happened. Then my
long-looked-for opportunity arrived. In the expression of silen