shed. The tired horses
drooped in the darkness. Las Vegas found his horse and led him away down
the road and out a lane to a field where a barn stood dim and dark in
the starlight. Morning was not far off. He unsaddled the horse and,
turning him loose, went into the barn. Here he seemed familiar with
his surroundings, for he found a ladder and climbed to a loft, where he
threw himself on the hay.

He rested, but did not sleep. At daylight he went down and brought his
horse into the barn. Sunrise found Las Vegas pacing to and fro the short
length of the interior, and peering out through wide cracks between
the boards. Then during the succeeding couple of hours he watched
the occasional horseman and wagon and herder that passed on into the
village.

About the breakfast hour Las Vegas saddled his horse and rode back the
way he had come the night before. At Turner's he called for something
to eat as well as for whisky. After that he became a listening, watching
machine. He drank freely for an hour; then he stopped. He seemed to
be drunk, but with a different kind of drunkenness from that usual in
drinking men. Savage, fierce, sullen, he was one to avoid. Turner waited
on him in evident fear.

At length Las Vegas's condition became such that action was involuntary.
He could not stand still nor sit down. Stalking out, he passed the
store, where men slouched back to avoid him, and he went down the road,
wary and alert, as if he expected a rifle-shot from some hidden enemy.
Upon his return down that main thoroughfare of the village not a person
was to be seen. He went in to Turner's. The proprietor was there at his
post, nervous and pale. Las Vegas did not order any more liquor.

"Turner, I reckon I'll bore you next time I run in heah," he said, and
stalked out.

He had the stores, the road, the village, to himself; and he patrolled a
beat like a sentry watching for an Indian attack.

Toward noon a single man ventured out into the road to accost the
cowboy.

"Las Vegas, I'm tellin' you--all the greasers air leavin' the range," he
said.

"Howdy, Abe!" replied Las Vegas. "What 'n hell you talkin' about?"

The man repeated his information. And Las Vegas spat out frightful
curses.

"Abe--you heah what Beasley's doin'?"

"Yes. He's with his men--up at the ranch. Reckon he can't put off ridin'
down much longer."

That was where the West spoke. Beasley would be forced to meet the enemy
who had come out single-handed a