Page:Cherokee Trails (1928).pdf/34

 something against him, his slit-eyes leering through the smoke.

Wildcat never was bred that was quicker on the spring than Eddie Kane; few men came his way who were anything near a match for him in strength. He was his own bouncer, his methods were bare-handed, his execution swift. He went around always in a stiff-breasted white shirt, collarless, without a coat, his vest open, a heavy gold watch-chain swinging in a loop.

A spider of a man, Eddie Kane. He would throw himself into a fracas, grab an aggressor by the neck and waistband of his trousers, rush him to the door and slam him out, contemptuous of his wild-swinging gun. His fame was far-reaching, the respect that it brought him not the least valuable asset in a business where a tough repute was worth more to a man than capital.

The livestock industry was being rapidly pushed off the map in that part of Kansas by the encroachment of the plow, although a few drovers were still holding out in the neighborhood of Drumwell. Westward from that point to the Colorado line things were pretty much as they had been for years. Right around Drumwell homesteaders were filling in rapidly; school and railroad lands, and such of the government domain as remained open between these two divisions, were being bought up, that being a region of deep soil, abundant rain, excellent agricultural possibilities.

Not from these incoming settlers Kane's long bar and boisterous dance-hall drew their support. The big cattle companies and individual drovers holding Cherokee leases, and lying to the west of the little line of railroad that