that he was in the position of a man with a dangerous charge for a gun
and no weapon to shoot it. He started out to find the gun.

In fact, he already had it in mind. Twenty-four hours later he was in
Craterville. Five days out of the ten before the twenty-fifth birthday of
Terence had elapsed, and Vance was still far from his goal, but he felt
that the lion's share of the work had been accomplished.

Craterville was a day's ride across the mountains from the Cornish ranch,
and it was the county seat. It was one of those towns which spring into
existence for no reason that can be discovered, and cling to life
generations after they should have died. But Craterville held one thing
of which Vance Cornish was in great need, and that was Sheriff Joe
Minter, familiarly called Uncle Joe. His reason for wanting the sheriff
was perfectly simple. Uncle Joe Minter was the man who killed Black Jack
Hollis.

He had been a boy of eighteen then, shooting with a rifle across a window
sill. That shot had formed his life. He was now forty-two and he had
spent the interval as the professional enemy of criminals in the
mountains. For the glory which came from the killing of Black Jack had
been sweet to the youthful palate of Minter, and he had cultivated his
taste. He became the most dreaded manhunter in those districts where
manhunting was most common. He had been sheriff at Craterville for a
dozen years now, and still his supremacy was not even questioned.

Vance Cornish was lucky to find the sheriff in town presiding at the head
of the long table of the hotel at dinner. He was a man of great dignity.
He wore his stiff black hair, still untarnished by gray, very long,
brushing it with difficulty to keep it behind his ears. This mass of