ncident
after hearing the details, with the comment or the conclusion that
there would hardly be for de Spain more than one additional chapter to
the story, and that this would be a short one. The most active
Morgans--Gale, Duke, and the easy-going Satterlee--were indeed wrought
to the keenest pitch of revengeful anger. No question of the right or
wrong of the arrest was discussed--justification was not considered.
It was an overwhelmingly insolent invasion--and worst of all, a
successful invasion, by one who had nothing but cool impudence, not
even a budding reputation to justify his assault on the lifelong
prestige of the Gap clan. Gale Morgan strode and rode the streets of
Sleepy Cat looking for de Spain, and storming.

De Spain himself, somewhat surprised at the storm he had kicked up,
heeded the counsel of Scott, and while the acute stage of the
resentment raged along the trail he ran down for a few days to
Medicine Bend to buy horses. Both Gale and Duke Morgan proclaimed, in
certain public places in Sleepy Cat, their intention of shooting de
Spain on sight; and as a climax to all the excitement of the week
following his capture, the slippery Sassoon broke jail and, after a
brief interval, appeared at large in Calabasas.

This feat of the Morgan satellite made a loud laugh at de Spain's
expense. It mitigated somewhat the humiliation of Sassoon's friends,
but it in no wise diminished their expressed resolve to punish de
Spain's invasion. Lefever, who as the mixer among the stage men, kept
close to the drift of public sentiment, decided after de Spain's
return to Sleepy Cat that the stage-line authorities had gained
nothing by Sassoon's capture.

"We ought to have thought of it before, Henry," he said frankly one
night in Jeffries's office, "but we didn't think."

"Meaning just what, John?" demanded de Spain without real interest.

"Meaning, that in this country you can't begin on a play like pulling
Sassoon out from under his friends' noses without keeping up the
pace--without a second and third act. You dragged Sassoon by his hair
out of the Gap; good. You surprised everybody; good. But you can't
very well stop at that, Henry. You have raised hopes, you have led
people to invest you with the faint glimmerings of a reputation. I
say, the glimmerings, because such a feat by itself doesn't insure a
permanent reputation, Henry. It is, so to say, merely a 'demand'
reputation--one that men reserve the right to reca