ne thought was of Jim
Courtot. Little by little he lost sight of other matters. He had
fought with Jim Courtot before now; he had seen the spit of the
gambler's gun twice, he had knocked him down. Courtot had hunted him,
he had gone more than half-way to meet the man. And yet that which had
occurred just now had happened again and again before; he came seeking
Courtot, and Courtot had just gone. It began almost to seem that
Courtot was fleeing him, that he had no stomach for a face-to-face
meeting; that what he wanted was to step out unexpectedly from a
corner, to shoot from the dark. This long-drawn-out, fruitless seeking
baffled and angered. It was time, he thought, high time that he and
Jim Courtot shot their way out of an unendurable mess. At every
swinging stride of Barbee's roan he grew but the more impatient for the
end of the ride and the face of Jim Courtot.

The broad sun flattened against the low hills and sank out of sight.
Dusk came and thickened and the stars began to flare out. Against the
darkening skyline before him the Last Ridge country reared itself
sombrely. A little breeze went dancing and shivering through the dry
mesquite and greasewood. His horse stumbled and slowed down. They had
come to the first of the rocky ground. He should be at the mouth of
Dry Gulch in half an hour. And there he would find the men he had
followed; they had beat him to it, for not a glimpse of them had he
had. They were, then, first on the ground. That was something, he
conceded. But it was not everything.

At last he dismounted and tied his horse to a bush. About him were
thick shadows, before him the tall bulwark of the uplands. His feet
were in a trail that he knew. He went on up, as silently, as swiftly
as he could. Presently he stood on the edge of the same flat on which
the Longstreets had made their camp, though a good half-mile to the
east of the canvas shack. A wide black void across the plateau was Dry
Gulch. Upon its nearer bank, not a hundred yards from him, a dry wood
fire blazed brightly; he must have seen it long ago except that a
shoulder of the mountain had hidden it. It burned fiercely, thrusting
its flames high, sending its sparks skyward. In its flickering circle
of light he saw dark objects which he knew must be the forms of men.
He did not count them, merely prayed within his heart that Courtot was
among them, and came on. He heard the men talking. He did not listen
for w