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 me, place of thankin' me for his lodgin'. I've seen some ornery men in my time, but I never seen one that had all the ornery p'ints Zeb Smith's got."

"He'll not be needed, anyhow, it's just as well he's gone. He's lost his boardin'-house pass, now Stott's left; he'll have to rack out and hunt him up once more."

"I hear Ollie Noggle's packin' a gun for him."

"I expect Zeb'll live to be a mighty old man if he waits till Noggle bores a hole in him, Uncle Boley."

"I reckon he will."

Texas stood in the door. Down the street where there had been so much excitement and activity an hour before, all was quiet. Few horses remained hitched at the racks before saloons and stores, the midday somnolence of ordinary times having settled over Cottonwood again. Many of the cattlemen had gone riding for the trail of Henry Stott, the business that had brought them to town so early having been driven from their thoughts by this new calamity.

For a while Texas was more than half in the mind to buy a horse and strike out at once after Fannie, and leave that tangle of trouble behind. But he could not outrun it very long. A blot would remain on his name to spread and enlarge after him, and reach again to him in time, no matter