t he did not even resent Blount's
deep-toned "Buffaloed, by God!" He groped unseeingly for the door,
followed by the scowling trio whose faces were flushed with the awful
shame of his cowardice. At the threshold they stopped as one man, these
three; they were brave men, if evil ones, and their sense of ethics had
been outraged unpardonably.

"I'll take my time right now!" said one of them thickly. "I don't work
for no d----d coward!" And the others acquiesced: "Same here!"

Matlock glared at them fiendishly for an eternal moment, one hand
fumbling at his throat, the other fiercely gripping his gun; but they
stared at him with somber contempt and deliberately turned their backs.
It was the last straw, and mumbling insanely through frothed lips, the
now thoroughly discredited and wholly disgraced wretch stumbled pitiably
out into the night of an ostracism more terrible than death.

Never again would man of these ranges take order from him. Never again
would women--even the sordid trollops of the slums--give him aught but a
pitying glance. And even the little children, awed by his shame, would
shrink wide-eyed from his contamination. For the one sin unpardonable,
the one foul specter against which range mothers invoke the intercession
of their gods, is Cowardice.

CHAPTER III

AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING

Douglass, ambling around the hotel veranda with little Eulalie astride
of his neck, the next morning, bumped into the tenderfoot who had sat
beside him in the Alcazar. He grinned sheepishly, for his antics were
anything but dignified and he and the child were both shouting at the
top of their voices. But there was only appreciation in the younger
man's eyes as he reflected "and this is the man who waited smilingly for
possible death last night!" Aloud he said genially:

"Good morning, Mr. Douglass. They told me over at the ranch--the C Bar I
mean--that I might find you here. At your convenience I would like to
have a talk with you."

Douglass looked at him curiously. "The C Bar," he said wonderingly. The
young man smiled. "Yes, I own it, as it happens. I am Robert Carter."
The cowboy took his extended hand and the young fellow winced
involuntarily. Eulalie, after grave deliberation, stuck out her chubby
little fist.

"I likes you, I fink," she said with much conviction, and Carter bowed
over it with a courtesy that placed him instantly in the good graces of
both.

"I am honored!" he said with character