CHAPTER 4


Like some old father-bear watching his cub flash teeth against a
stalking lynx, half proud and half fearful of such courage, so the
dying cattleman looked at his son. Excitement set a high and dangerous
color in his cheek. "Pierre--brave boy! Look at me. I ain't no
imitation man, even now, but I ain't a ghost of what I was. There
wasn't no man I wouldn't of met fair and square with bare hands or
with a gun. Maybe my hands was big, but they were fast on the draw.
I've lived all my life with iron on the hip, and my six-gun has
seven notches.

"But McGurk downed me fair and square. There wasn't no murder. I was
out for his hide, and he knew it. I done the provokin', an' he jest
done the finishin', that was all. It hurts me a lot to say it, but
he's a better man than I was. A kid like you, why, he'd jest eat
you, Pierre."

Pierre le Rouge smiled again. He felt a stern pride to be the son of
this man.

"So that's settled," went on Martin Ryder, "an' a damned good thing it
is. Son, you didn't come none too soon. I'm goin' out fast. There
ain't enough light left in me so's I can see my own way. Here's all I
ask: When I die touch my eyelids soft an' draw 'em shut--I've seen the
look in a dead man's eyes. Close 'em, and I know I'll go to sleep an'
have good dreams. And down in the middle of Morgantown is the
buryin'-ground. I've ridden past it a thousand times an' watched a
corner plot, where the grass grows quicker than it does anywheres else