Atlanta Daily World

Price Regan, town marshal of Saddle Rock, Colo., and deputy sheriff of Tremaine county has more on his mind than Laura Madden, even though she has announced to him that he is marrying her. Price would be willing enough to marry Laura if he wasn't the man in the middle in a struggle of power and pride between Laura's father, Barry Madden Saddle Rock's banker, and Cole Weston, a cattleman whose riders do not respect any laws.

Madden found out he didn't own Price when he offered him a house as a wedding present in return for running homesteader-storekeeper Walt Cronin out of the country. Price refused. Word of this traveled fast, and one of Cole Weston's gunslinging cowboys, Curly Blue, picked a fight with Price. Blue came out second best, so Weston ordered Madden to get rid of Price. For Laura's sake, Madden persuaded Weston to allow him twelve hours to bring Price into line without gunplay.

Weston doesn't want settlers coming into the valley and obtaining legal possession under homestead laws of land Weston has been holding by force. Weston wants to make a forbidding example of Cronin.

Price, unable to convince the belligerent Cronin of the extent of his peril, is alerting other valley homesteaders. . . .

CHAPTER 8

PRICE REGAN kept his gaze on Sam Potter, ignoring his wife. Price felt ashamed and sorry for a man who'd let a hatchet-faced wife do his talking for him. He asked softly, "Don't you have a tongue, Sam?"

Potter grinned placidly. "I got one, but I don't use it much. Lizzie, she talks better'n I do."

"And I'm going to talk some more," Mrs. Potter said in her strident voice. "We ain't hurting nobody. We just want to be let alone. We're going to prove up on this place. No reason we should be pushed off of it. We're never moving, mister. Get that through your thick head."

"Ma," Jean said. "You can't have to insult him."

"Insult a gunslinger like him?" asked Mrs. Potter, her gaunt cheeks turning dark red. "Jean, you don't understand men like this. They're killers. They're paid to run over weak people like us. Chase us off land that nobody wants just because we ain't rich with cattle like Cole Weston."

"You're wrong, ma'am," Price said. "I aim to see you have the right to live on this place if you don't break any laws. That's why I'm here. Looks to me like Walt Cronin's been stealing calves, but I haven't found the evidence I need to arrest him. When I do, he'll go to the county seat for trial, but right now there's one thing you folks ought to think about. How will you make out when he's gone?"

"We'll make out," Mrs. Potter said bitterly. "Don't you ever think we won't, but I reckon you won't arrest Cronin. He's smarter than you are."

"Then he has been stealing calves?"

"I didn't say that."

"If he isn't, who is?"

"I don't know nothing about it," Mrs. Potter said through tight lips. "Neither does Sam. You go on now. Just leave us alone."

Price glanced at the boy, Bruce, who was staring at him, his eyes pinned on the gun holster on Price's thigh, then at Jean, who was trying to smile, trying to tell him they didn't really hate him the way her mother was making out.

"I feel sorry for you folks because you're stupid," Price said. "There's places where you could live on good land with good water rights, but you've got to come here where you'll never make a living, and you're backing up a crook who's just about got to the end of his twine."

Price reined around and rode back downstream, Mrs. Potter yelling at his back. "Don't feel sorry for us, coming around here and trying to scare us with that kind of talk . . ."

"Ma," Jean cried. "Stop it!" More talk, loud and angry, but Price didn't go back. Or even look back. No use. Nothing could change Lizzie Potter.

Then he thought of Jean and shook his head. In another twenty years she might be like her mother, but she wasn't now. She deserved a better life than she had here on the Yellow Cat, a better future.

Who was to blame? Her mother? Walt Cronin? Or was it Cole Weston and Barry Madden and the rest who had closed off the good land along Elk River?

No, it was bigger than that, Price thought. It was the Westons and the Maddens all over the West who had kept the Potters drifting from one place to another. The lawmen, too, like himself. And Ralph Carew. That, he decided grimly, would in the end be the real issue here. Either men had a right to settle on the public domain, or you forgot your oath to enforce the law; you traded your integrity for the right to live.

If Price had learned anything from Ralph Carew, it was the conviction that a man who traded his integrity had no right to live. But could he make Laura understand that?

To all intents and purposes, the Homestead Act had been repealed on Elk River. Cole Weston—and he was a common type in a raw country like this—considered any law a tool to be used for his personal profit, to be overlooked when it could not be used.

But now, in spite of his personal feelings and in spite of what happened this morning, Price was being forced to the cowmen's side. He had to get Cronin because Cronin was the only one so far who had committed overt acts against the law. There was still the matter of securing evidence against him, but sooner or later he'd make a mistake and Price would have what he needed.

Once that Walt Cronin was gone from Elk River, the problem would be solved—a wrong solution, but it would be solved. The settlers would be starved into leaving the Yellow Cat, and the cowmen would have what they wanted.

Otherwise the settlers would be destroyed. Moving them out was the best thing that could happen to them, but they would never agree to that. They would hate him even more than they did now.

Price Regan stood alone, as terribly alone as a man could be, out that was the cost of being a lawman.

Ralph Carew had often told him that, told him how he, too, had stood alone in the early days on the other side of the Singing Wind Range. Price had listened, but he had not really understood because it hadn't happened to him. He understood now, and he thought of Laura. He should have known, he told himself bitterly, months ago, before they talked of marriage. Now it was too late, and she would be hurt before it was over.

He rode past Frank Evans place. The farmer was still in his garden, not even bothering to look up as Price went by. A few minutes later he reached Cronin's store. The man must have been watching for him. Now he stepped off the porch and into the road, calling, "Regan."

Price reined up. "Well?"

"What have you been up to?"

"Looking," Price answered.

"You know what I saw?"

"I don't give a damn what you saw."

"I figure you'd better. Calves here in your pasture, Cronin. Yearling steers up the creek, but no cows. Where did you get them?"

"My business," Cronin said sullenly.

"Yesterday I might have agreed," Price said, "but not today. A lot of people live up that creek. Some of them are going to get hurt. I aim to keep it from happening if I can."

Cronin wasn't wearing his gun. Now he reared back, hands shoved under his waistband, eyes on Price as if seeing him in a new light. "What are you aiming to do, Deputy?"

"I've asked a few questions," Price said. "I'm going to keep on asking till I find out where those calves came from. I think you stole them. Or somebody stole them for you."

Cronin blew out a great breath and cursed. He said, "Get down off that horse, Regan. I'm going to beat you to death."

"I don't figure to give you a chance," Price said, and reached for his gun.

"Get down," Rose said. She was standing in front of her cabin, a cocked shotgun in her hands. So this was the way they had it set up. He saw it with stark clarity.
(To Be Continued)