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"Same old crowd Dunlavey, Yuma Ed, Ten Spot, Greasy most of the bunch which has been makin' things interestin' for us hereabouts." At the mention of "Yuma Ed" Hollis looked up. That was the name of the second man he had struck in the affair near the Fashion Saloon. He wondered if Norton knew.
The suspicion had assailed him that perhaps the appearance of Ten Spot at the Hazelton cabin so opportunely had been a part of a plot by Dunlavey to place a spy in his employ. They might have purposely sacrificed Yuma.
Dunlavey seemed stunned. He stood erect, passing his hand over his forehead as though half convinced that the scene were an illusion and that the movement of the hand would dispel it. Several times his lips moved, but no words came and he turned, looking about at the men who were gathered around him, scanning their faces for signs that would tell him that they were not in sympathy with Ten Spot.
"You have succeeded in making it very plain," he continued slowly. "But I am not going to run I have decided on that. Of course I feel properly resentful over the way my father has been treated by this man Dunlavey and his association." His eyes flashed with a peculiar hardness.
"On the first day of October!" returned Allen, triumphantly. Hollis smiled. "And election day is the third of November," he said. "That gives Dunlavey, Watkins and Company a month's grace in case you are elected sheriff." Allen grinned. "They can't do a heap in a month," he said.
He still stood behind Dunlavey, but his weapons no longer menaced the Circle Cross manager; their muzzles, level and forbidding, were covering the other men. Standing quietly beside the rear door, his face pale, his eyes bright, his lips in straight lines, Hollis watched closely as the visitors, having gained entrance, gathered together in the center of the room.
Dunlavey rose, his lips curling with contempt. "You make me sick!" he sneered. He turned his back and walked to the door, returning and standing in front of Hollis, ominously cool and deliberate. "So that's the how of it?" he said evenly. "You've come out here looking for fight. Well, you'll get it plenty of it. I owe you something "
"Well, yes. I suppose Dunlavey is back of it. But Yuma tacked the sign up." He smiled soberly as Hollis flashed a grin at him. "They tried hard last night to get me to drink. Of course their purpose was to get me drunk so that I wouldn't be able to get the paper out today. I am not going to tell you how hard I had to fight myself to resist the temptation to drink.
I've done some mean things in my time, but I ain't dealin' double with no man, an' I couldn't go back to the Circle Cross an' work for Dunlavey when I ain't sympathizin' with him none." "I'm shy of good cowhands," offered Hollis quietly. "If forty a month would be " Ten Spot's right hand was suddenly gripping Hollis's. "You've hired a man, boss!" he said, his eyes alight with pleasure.
When he had first come to Dry Bottom it had been universally conceded by the town's citizens that his differences with Dunlavey and the Cattlemen's Association were purely personal, and there had been a disposition on the part of the citizens to let them fight it out between themselves. But of late there had come a change in that sentiment.
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