the mileage--ten cents a mile each way in a county that's jam full of
miles from one edge to the other; ten cents a mile each way for
each and every arrest and subpoena. You drag them to court twice a
year--the farmer at seed time and harvest, the cowman from the spring
and fall round-ups. It hurts, it cripples them, they ride thirty
miles to vote against you; it costs you all the extra mileage money to
offset their votes. As a final folly, you purpose deliberately to stir
up the old factions. What was it Napoleon said? 'It is worse than
a crime: it is a blunder.' I'll tell you now, not a Barela nor an
Ascarate shall stir a foot in such a quarrel. If you want to bait Kit
Foy, do it yourself--or set your city police on him."

"I will."

A faint tinge of color came to the clear olive of Anastacio's cheek as
he rose.

"But don't promise my place to any of them, sheriff. I might hear of
it."

"Stranger," said Ben Creagan, "you can't play pool! I can't--and I
beat you four straight games. You better toddle your little trotters
off to bed." The words alone might have been mere playfulness; glance
and tone made plain the purposed offense.

The after-supper crowd in the hotel barroom had suddenly slipped away,
leaving Max Barkeep, three others, and John Wesley Pringle--the last
not unnoting of nudge and whisper attending the exodus. Since that,
Pringle had suffered, unprotesting, more gratuitous insults than
he had met in all the rest of his stormy years. His curiosity was