t to a fighting finish.

Taking the broad-rimmed gray hat he found on the rack, Cass passed out of
the clubhouse and into the sun-bathed street.

CHAPTER II

LUCK MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE

Cullison and his friends proceeded down Papago street to the old plaza
where their hotel was located. Their transit was an interrupted one, for
these four cattlemen were among the best known in the Southwest. All along
the route they scattered nods of recognition, friendly greetings, and
genial banter. One of them--the man who had formerly been the hard-riding,
quick-shooting sheriff of the county--met also scowls once or twice, to
which he was entirely indifferent. Luck had no slavish respect for law,
had indeed, if rumor were true, run a wild and stormy course in his youth.
But his reign as sheriff had been a terror to lawbreakers. He had made
enemies, desperate and unscrupulous ones, who had sworn to wipe him from
among the living, and one of these he was now to meet for the first time
since the man had stood handcuffed before him, livid with fury, and had
sworn to cut his heart out at the earliest chance.

It was in the lobby of the hotel that Cullison came plump against Lute
Blackwell. For just a moment they stared at each other before the former
sheriff spoke.

"Out again, eh, Blackwell?" he said easily.

From the bloodshot eyes one could have told at a glance the man had been
drinking heavily. From whiskey he had imbibed a Dutch courage just bold
enough to be dangerous.

"Yes, I'm out--and back again, just as I promised, Mr. Sheriff," he
threatened.

The cattleman ignored his manner. "Then I'll give you a piece of advice
gratis. Papago County has grown away from the old days. It has got past
the two-gun man. He's gone to join the antelope and the painted Indian.
You'll do well to remember that."

The fellow leaned forward, sneering so that his ugly mouth looked like a
crooked gash. "How about the one-gun man, Mr. Sheriff?"

"He doesn't last long now."

"Doesn't he?"

The man's rage boiled over. But Luck was far and away the quicker of the
two. His left hand shot forward and gripped the rising wrist, his right
caught the hairy throat and tightened on it. He shook the convict as if he
had been a child, and flung him, black in the face, against the wall,
where he hung, strangling and sputtering.

"I--I'll get you yet," the ruffian panted. But he did not again attempt to
reach for the weapon in his hip po