“He can’t see yuh,” Hardin said. “He’s asleep.”

Gentry’s eyes hardened. “You runnin’ this place too?”

“Betty London is going to work for me,” Hardin replied. “We may be married later, so in a sense, I’m speaking for her.”

“Is that right?” Tack demanded, his eyes meeting Betty’s.

Her face was miserable. “I’m afraid it is, Tack.”

“You’ve forgotten your promise then?” he demanded.

“Things—things changed, Tack,” she faltered. “I—I can’t talk about it.”

“I reckon, Gentry,” Olney interrupted, “it’s time yuh rode on. There’s nothin’ in this neck of the woods for yuh. Yuh’ve played out yore hand here. Ride on, and you’ll save yourself a lot of trouble. They’re hirin’ hands over on the Pecos.”

“I’m stayin’,” Gentry said flatly.

“Remember,” Olney warned, “I’m the sheriff. At the first sign of trouble, I’ll come lookin’ for yuh.”

CHAPTER TWO: The Fight Begins

Gentry swung into the saddle, his eyes shifted to Betty’s face and for an instant, she seemed about to speak, then he turned and rode away. He did not look back. It was not until after he was gone that he remembered Button and Blackie.

To think they were in the possession of Hardin and Olney! The twin blacks he had reared and worked with, training them to do tricks, teaching them all the lore of the cow-country horses and much more.

The picture was clear now. In the year in which he had been gone these men had come in, asserted their claims, taken them to carpetbag courts, and made them stick. Backing their legal claims with guns, they had taken over the country with speed and finesse. At every turn, he was blocked. Betty had turned against him. Bill London was either a prisoner in his own house, or something was wrong. Olney was sheriff, and probably they had their own judge.

He could quit. He could pull out and go on to the Pecos. It would be the easiest way. It was even what Uncle John might have wished him to do, for John Gentry was a peace loving man. Tack Gentry was of another breed. His father had been killed fighting Comanches, and Tack had gone to war when a mere boy. Uncle John had found a place for himself in a non-combatant outfit, but Tack had fought long and well.

His ride north with the trail herd had been rough and bloody. Twice they had fought off Indians, once they had mixed it with rustlers. In Ellsworth, a gunman named Paris had made trouble that ended with Paris dead on the floor.

Tack had left town in a hurry, ridden to the new camp at Dodge, and then joined a trail herd headed for Wyoming. Indian fighting had been the order of the day, and once, rounding up a bunch of steers lost from the herd in a stampede, Tack had run into three rustlers after the same steers.

Tack downed two of them in the subsequent battle, and then shot it out with the other in a day-long rifle battle that covered a cedar and boulder strewn hillside. Finally, just before sundown, they met in hand-to-hand combat with bowie knives.

Tack remained long enough to see his old friend Major Powell with whom he had participated in the Wagon Box Fight, and then had wandered back to Kansas. On the Platte he joined a bunch of buffalo hunters, stayed with them a couple of months, and then trailed back to Dodge.

Sunbonnet’s Longhorn Saloon was ablaze with lights when he drifted into town that night. He stopped at the livery stable and put up his horse. He had taken a roundabout route, scouting the country, so he decided that Hardin and Olney were probably already in town. By now they would know of his call at the ranch, and his meeting with Anson Childe.

He was laboring under no delusions about his future. Van Hardin would not hesitate to see him put out of the way if he attempted to regain his property. Hardin had brains, and Olney was no fool. There were things Gentry must know before anything could be done, and the one man in town who could and would know was Childe.

Leaving the livery stable he started up the street. Turning, he glanced back to see the livery man standing in the stable door. He dropped his hand quickly, but Gentry believed he had signaled someone across the street. Yet there was no one in sight, and the row of buildings seemed blank and empty.

Only three buildings were lighted. The Longhorn, a smaller, cheaper saloon, and the old general store. There was a light upstairs over the small saloon, and several lights in the annex to the Longhorn which passed as a hotel, the only one in Sunbonnet.

Tack walked along the street, his boot heels sounding loud in the still night air. Ahead of him was a space between the buildings, and when he drew abreast of it he did a quick sidestep off the street, flattening against the building.

He heard footsteps, hesitation, and then lightly running steps and suddenly a man dove around the corner, grated to a stop on the gravel, staring down the alleyway between the buildings. He did not see Tack, who was flattened in the dense shadow against the building and behind a rain barrel.

The man started forward suddenly, and Tack reached out and grabbed his ankle. Caught in midstride, the fellow plunged over on his head, then lay still. For an instant, Gentry hesitated, then struck and shielded a match with his left hand. It was the brown hatted man he had talked to on the porch of London’s ranch. His head had hit a stone, and he was out cold.

Swiftly, Tack shucked the fellow’s gun and emptied the shells from it, then pushed it back in his holster. A folded paper had fallen from the unconscious man’s pocket, and Tack picked it up. Then moving fast, he went down the alley until he was in back of the small saloon. By the light from a back window, he read the note.

“This,” he muttered, “may help!”

 Come to town quick. Trouble’s brewing. We can’t have anything happen now. V H.

Van Hardin. They didn’t want trouble now. Why, now? Folding the note, he slipped it into his pocket and flattened against the side of the saloon, studied the interior. Only two men sat in the dim interior. Two men who played cards at a small table. The bartender leaned on the bar and read a newspaper. When the man turned his head, Tack recognized him.

“Red” Furness had worked for his father. He had soldiered with him. He might still be friendly. Tack lifted his knuckles and tapped lightly on the window.

At the second tap, Red looked up. Tack lighted a match and moved it past the window. Neither of the card players seemed to have noticed. Red straightened, folded his paper, then picking up a cup walked back toward the window. When he got there, he dipped the cup into the water bucket with one hand, and with the other, lifted the window a few inches.

“This is Tack Gentry. Where does Childe hang out?”

Red’s whisper was low. “Got him an office and sleepin’ room upstairs. There’s a back stairway. Yuh watch yoreself.”

Tack stepped away from his window and made his way to the stairway he had already glimpsed. It might be a trap, but he believed Red was loyal. Also, he was not sure the word was out to kill him. They probably merely wanted him out of the way, and hoped he could be warned to move on. The position of the Hardin group seemed secure enough.

Reaching the top of the stairs he walked along the narrow catwalk to the door. He tapped softly. After an instant, there was a voice. “What do you want?”

“This is Tack Gentry. Yuh talked to me in the saloon!” The door opened to darkness, and he stepped in. When it closed, he felt a pistol barrel against his spine.

“Hold still!” Childe warned.

Behind him a match struck, then a candle was lighted. The light still glowed in the other room, seen only by the crack under the door. Childe grinned at him. “Got to be careful,” he said. “They have tried twice to drygulch me!

“I put flowers on their graves every Monday!” he smiled. “And keep an extra one dug. Ever since I had that new grave dug, I’ve been left alone. Somehow it seems to have a very sobering influence on the local roughs.”