speed. After all, the horse was right, Andy decided. For the moment he
thought of turning and facing that crowd, but he remembered stories
about men who had killed the enemy in fair fight, but who had been tried
by a mob jury and strung to the nearest tree.

Any sane man might have told Andrew that those days were some distance
in the past, but Andy made no distinction between periods. He knew the
most exciting events which had happened around Martindale in the past
fifty years, and he saw no difference between one generation and the
next. Was not Uncle Jasper himself continually dinning into his ears
the terrible possibilities of trouble? Was not Uncle Jasper, even in his
old age, religiously exacting in his hour or more of gun exercise each
day? Did not Uncle Jasper force Andy to go through the same maneuvers
for twice as long between sunset and sunrise? And why all these endless
preparations if these men of Martindale were not killers?

It might seem strange that Andy could have lived so long among these
people without knowing them better, but he had taken from his mother a
little strain of shyness. He never opened his mind to other people, and
they really never opened themselves to Andy Lanning. The men of
Martindale wore guns, and the conclusion had always been apparent to
Andy that they wore guns because, in a pinch, they were ready to
kill men.

To Andy Lanning, as fear whipped him north out of Martindale, there
seemed no pleasure or safety in the world except in the speed of his
horse and the whir of the air against his face. When that speed faltered
he went to the quirt. He spurred mercilessly. Yet he had ridden his
horse out to a stagger before he reached old Sullivan's place. Only when
the forefeet of the mustang began to pound did he realize his folly in