the roads like a madman, in a big, black,
powerful coupe to Laramie, to Cheyenne, to Denver, anywhere he could
get whiskey and dope. He would come back, rave around, threaten
everybody with a gun, but paid out money like he had the mint back of
him, and finally got it done. You notice that the logs are "treated,"
stained or shellacked, to retain their first color. The mechanics did
that, and the count was mightily pleased until he found out that it
made the shack stand out so that it could be seen for a long distance,
and then he threw a fit. He went wild, ran 'em off the job, then I
came into the picture.

"I was prospecting down Ripple Creek Canyon and living in that shack
that you can see from the rim over there. I was trying to locate a
claim, mining claim. But from the homestead lines, this cabin was off
the reservation, built off the edge of Stanley's claim and on the
government's land where I wanted to stake off a mineral right.

"I came up out of the canyon on the day he had gotten the men back and
explained the error and showed him his predicament and then bought him
out...."

"Ah, tell hit right," growled Landy. "Tell him like them scairt men
told hit to me." Landy took up the recitation of how the home was
acquired. "He made that greasy counterfeit eat his gun that he whipped
out from under his left arm. He kicked him in the ribs, he did, after
he'd knocked him down a coupla times. Made him go down thar and look
at the old survey stakes, he did, then made him drive his crazy car
over to Adot, and old Squire Landry made out the deed and he signed
hit and Welborn here paid him in a sack of gold dust that they weighed
on the grocery scales. That's how 'twas done. Tell hit right, so's
Davy here will know the story."

Welborn laughed at Landy's recitals. "No, I didn't intimidate him. I
made him see the matter in the right light. The proposition to
sell-out came from him. I didn't want to buy him out, I had nothing to
buy with, but the dust that it took me all summer to acquire. Truth
is, this drink-crazed madman was a hoodlum gunman from Chicago or
Saint Louis, that had lost his nerve. A killer who couldn't take the
finish that was due him. He had run from it, and like an ostrich, he
thought he was hidden up here. He didn't want me as a neighbor and
when he found out that he had infringed on government land he was so
scared that he would have given the place to me or anyone that wanted
it. In fact, he didn't