n' in the sights. Maybe he'll see suthin'
worth while if he hangs around a bit longer." And he smiled grimly and
renewed his watch of the doors.

Less than a year before, Matlock had an altercation with a sheep herder
over a game of cards in this very room and had been soundly thrashed by
the unarmed man. The next night the shepherd's camp had been raided by a
masked mob, his sheep ruthlessly slaughtered, despite the fact that he
was on the right side of the "dead line," therefore entirely within his
rights, and himself shot to death by the merciless marauders. Of course
there was no positive proof of their identity, but the consensus of
opinion pointed to the C Bar outfit, and the decent element among the
range men had held significantly aloof from Matlock ever since.
Douglass's escapade had in nowise affected his popularity among the
resentful cattle owners who had been seriously involved by the outrage
on the sheepman; the law of the range demands fair play and the feeling
against Matlock was further intensified by a dastardly trick perpetrated
by him a few days before Douglass's unceremonious man-handling of him.

Among the men working for the C Bar had been a quiet inoffensive German
named Braun, whose ambition was to acquire a small ranch of his own.
With this end in view he had allowed salary to accumulate in Matlock's
hands until it had attained very respectable proportions. Upon this
little hoard Matlock had long had designs, and one night he seduced
Braun--who was a mere boy--into a game of cards where with the
assistance of one of his confederate creatures he had deliberately
robbed him of every cent. This in itself would have aroused but little
comment; every man must protect himself in card play and any means that
can be enforced to one's end in poker are admissible. But with the
malicious brutality characteristic of all cowardly bullies, Matlock had
subsequently taunted his victim with his lack of perspicuity, boasting
openly of the means he had employed, until the boy, lashed into
ungovernable fury, had fumblingly drawn his revolver, whereupon Matlock
shot him through the head.

In the light of self-defense even this would have been condoned, but one
of the dead man's friends, collecting his effects for transmission to
his widowed mother, had discovered that Braun's revolver had been
rendered absolutely useless by having its hammer point shortened in such
a way that it could not reach the primers of the