this minute. But we'll wait and see what the next mail brings forth."
He rode back to the P.R.N. home ranch and stayed two days, in the course of which he let off no less than ten of his punchers, among these being the man who had filed on the Gillette water right. His instructions to them were pointed. "This country's getting pretty hot. It's a rotten climate. Were I you I believe I'd travel west until I found the exact spot where the sun went into a hole." With that done he returned to Nelson and found a pair of telegrams waiting for him. He read them in the order of their date.
DISLIKE TENOR OF LAST WIRE. INNUENDO INSULTING. WE HEAR FROM RELIABLE SOURCES YOU HAVE OVERSTEPPED YOUR AUTHORITY. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ANY UNLAWFUL ACT ON YOUR PART IMPLICATES US? IF SUCH IS CASE YOU MUST TAKE CONSEQUENCES.
And the other telegram:
KEEP WITHIN YOUR EXPLICIT INSTRUCTIONS. WHO TOLD YOU TO EXTEND RANGE SOUTH OF RIVER? WITHDRAW ALL CATTLE FROM THAT SECTION, DROP ALL BUSINESS CONNECTED WITH IT. YOUR LACK OF JUDGMENT AND DISCRETION ASTOUNDING. INVOLVES US WITH GOVERNMENT. GET YOUR BOOKS IN ORDER AND RENDER US A FULL ACCOUNT OF YOUR ACTS. LETTER FOLLOWS.
"In other words they're putting themselves on record as disavowing me," mused Grist. "They've tucked tails, the fat yellow scoundrels. Overboard goes the furniture to save a leaky boat. It won't do. They'll lose the beef contract, and they'll lose every inch of land they've had me steal. I'm through."
He saw the handwriting on the wall. Methodically he set about bringing up his account, and during the ensuing four days he brought together all the odds and ends of company business, even leaving a list of instructions for his unknown successor. And then, with all that behind him, he closed down the desk top, locked the office door, and crossed to the hotel. He was through.
"Just so. All it took to knock over an empire was one little puff of air and a single beam of daylight. Grist, my boy, let that be a lesson in high morality for you. There's always one honest man among a hundred fools. Now we shall eat the feast of Nero, salute this town, and depart. One more day and I'm apt to find myself in the lock-up. They're desperate for a victim."
He gave the office key to the hotel man with instructions to transfer it when his successor came; he started for the dining room, hungry and moved to a kind of flippant amusement. Half in his chair he heard the hotel man say:
"That's Tom Gillette ridin' in, ain't it? Sure. Somebody told me he went to Deadwood. Well, he'll be on somebody's trail."
A startled expression skittered over Grist's face. He did not touch the chair's bottom; pivoting he went out the back door and on down the back alley.
Gillette's first visit, once in Nelson, was to the United States Marshal. "Well, you invited me to come get a warrant, Hannery. Here I am."
The marshal tilted back his chair. "I wasn't in any hurry about that, Gillette. Why in thunder are you?"
"Because I don't want it hanging over me," said Gillette soberly. "That's some of friend Grist's work, isn't it?"
"That's right. So is the eviction proceedings, if you want the opinion of a private citizen."
"All right, serve your warrant. If there's twelve men in Dakota who'll convict me on that charge then they're a new brand of settlers to me. I'll go that one better—if there's six men, outside of the P.R.N. crew, who'll convict me I'll pay for my own funeral."
"I know that as well as you do," drawled Hannery. "Don't you figure I'm familiar with public opinion in this district? Hell, it's so flat a case the U. S. Attorney won't clutter up his docket with it. He told me so."
"Well, I don't want it hanging over," said Gillette. "Let's clear the matter up. Let's go through with it."
Hannery shook his head. He was a florid man, and he owned a rough sense of humour that now and then snapped to his eyes. It appeared now. "Reckon I've got to disappoint you, Gillette. Fact is, I filed that warrant somewhere and I've lost it. All my papers get throwed around so dog-gone carelessly. If you want to be served you'll have to wait till I find it. Meanwhile you go about your business. My opinion is it got into the waste basket by mistake. Come to think of it, I'm almost sure somebody cleared my desk the other day."
Gillette rolled a cigarette, frowning over the operation. Presently he looked up. "Hannery, you're a white man."
"The country used to be nothing but white men," was the marshal's gruff answer.
"Grist'll bring it up again, though."
"Like hell he will. Haven't you heard any of the news? Grist resigned his job three days ago. He's still around town, but he's got nothing to do with the P.R.N. any more. What are you worrying about?"
"A fact?" murmured Gillette, plainly surprised. "What jarred him loose?"
"I don't know for sure. But Senator Billy Costaine stormed into town some ten days back and took enough depositions to fill a wagon. Right after that the land-office fellow skipped. Next, Grist filled in his ticket. You can guess for yourself."
He leaned forward, a stubby finger tapping the table. "Speakin' privately, that Eastern bunch was ridin' awful high, and they stood to make a million out of this land-grabbin' deal. They'd of made it, too. Nobody around here could shout loud enough to make Washington hear anything. Most of us didn't know enough to register a kick, and some of us knew but weren't in any position to make any very big noise. How Costaine came into the wind I don't know. But he did, and when that fellow gets on the trail something drops. I'm bettin' you solid silver against a hackamore there won't be any P.R.N. Land Company in these parts when the year rolls around."
"That's why I didn't see any cattle south of the river, then?"
"Grist told me he was ordered to draw everything back from that side and quit bothering with it."
Gillette got up and tilted his hat. He was smiling. "Any time you want to evict me, Hannery, just go ahead. I'm going to move anyhow. To-morrow morning I'll be squatting where Wyatt used to be. I'd like to see anybody take that from me."
"I was going to drop that bug down your collar myself," replied Hannery. "P.R.N. can't hold it—they won't dare to go through with the schedule. And nobody else's got wind of the situation. You bet it's going to be a white man's country yet. Say, you look kind of peaked. Deadwood trouble you some?"
"I went after a party and he saw me first," was Gillette's sombre answer.
Hannery's eyes swept down Gillette's loose frame. "You don't carry that gun low enough by two inches."
"I'm no killer, Hannery. I've had enough to last me. All I want is to be let alone. Well, thanks."
He walked out and joined Quagmire who crouched in a patch of shade. The sun went westering, and at the moment Nelson was aflame under its slanting beams. The tide of life ran along the street in a sluggish trickle; down at the station a train stood ready to pull eastward, smoke pouring out of the engine's funnel stack. A bell clanged resonantly and Quagmire stirred, rubbing his knee joints with a slow, uneasy motion.
"Come on, Quagmire, let's get something to eat. It's a long ride home."
"Ain't hungry," murmured the puncher. "I don't feel right. I don't fer a fact. They's somethin' wrong. You go ahead."
Gillette went on and into the hotel dining room. Only a matter of habit put him there—habit and the need for something to occupy his mind. He was tired, supremely tired, and his muscles served him none too well. The long trip from Deadwood had been a pretty hard strain, even though he rode the wagon seat. It seemed to him that he was growing old; here a month was gone since the night San Saba and Hazel's gang had ambushed him, and still he was weak. Where was his vitality? There was no snap to him, no resiliency, and he observed with a detached and critical disapproval that even for so simple an operation as reaching for the salt shaker it took a distinct order from his brain and a conscious pull of will to extend and withdraw his arm. He was dull, dead on his feet.
"Wherever she goes," he told himself, "I'll follow. Clear to the jump-off."
It seemed mighty queer to him he didn't feel elated at the sudden change in