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 "And that being the case, you look just like any other slinkin' damned whelp to me," he said. "Get out!"

The marshal climbed down on uncertain legs, Simpson following with the two guns.

"You're beyond your contemptible jurisdiction now, and you look to me like a damned louse," Simpson told him. "Here's your gun. If you're not wearin' a dog's tail, step it off and we'll settle it, right here!"

The marshal stuck his gun in the leather, turned, and walked away, putting his feet down jerkily as if he jolted down off something at every step. There was nothing noble in his going, no high courage, no spirit of defiance. It was the exit of a coward, with a tail, Tom Simpson thought, as long as a man's arm.

But the man was full of venom for the failure of his coup, by which he had intended to lift himself to importance in town and turn the laugh they had been giving him since the prisoners locked him in his own calaboose that rainy night. Simpson knew he had no justification for lifting his hand against the officer, and he knew likewise that a lot of future trouble was walking back to town with the little beast.

There would not be any peace for him in Drumwell from that time forward, Simpson knew. He would either have to fight or quit. Technically, perhaps, he was on the wrong side of the question, but at the most they could not prefer a graver charge against him than assault and battery for that affair with Kane. But there was no knowing how they might railroad a man if Kane had the influence he was reported to hold over the county attorney. Simpson certainly had a lively nest of fledgling troubles under