* * * * *

The four in the barroom listened, grinning. When they heard Pringle's
door slam shut Bell Applegate nodded and Creagan went out on the
street. Behind him, at a table near the pool-room door, the law
planned ways and means in a slinking undertone. "You keep in the
background, Joe. Let us do the talking. Foy just naturally despises
you--we might not get him to stay the fifteen minutes out. You stay
back there. Remember now, don't shoot till Ben lets him get his arm
loose. _Sabe_?"

"Maybe Meester Ben don't find heem."

"Oh, yes, he will. Ditch meeting to-night. Ought to be out about now.
Setting the time to use the water and assessing _fatiga_ work. Every
last man with a water right will be there, sure, and Foy's got a
dozen. Max, you are to be a witness, remember, and you mustn't be
mixed up in it. Got your story straight?"

"Foy he comes in and makes a war-talk about Dick Marr," recited Max.
"After we powwow awhile you see his gun. You tell him he's under
arrest for carryin' concealed weapons. You and Ben grabbed his arm; he
jerked loose and went after his gun. And then Joe shot him."

"That's it. We'll all stick to that. S-st! Here they come!"

There are men whose faces stand out in a crowd, men you turn to look
after on the street. Such--quite apart from his sprightly past--was
Christopher Foy, who now entered with Creagan. He was about thirty,