He had never been affected by that sort of adulation—in Lamo or in the days that preceded his visit to the town. But he was not unmindful of the advantage such adulation would give him in his campaign for control of the outlaw camp. And that was what he had determined to achieve.
Three times in as many days he rode up the valley to the Star, each time talking with Haydon—then leaving the latter to go out and lounge around among the men, listening to their talk, but taking little part in it. He did not speak until he was spoken to, and thus he challenged their interest, and they began to make advances to him.
Their social structure was flimsy and thin, their fellowship as spontaneous as it was insincere; and within a few days the edge had worn off the strangeness that had surrounded Harlan, and he had been accepted with hardly a ripple of excitement.
And yet no man among them had achieved intimacy with Harlan. There was a cold constraint in his manner that held them off, figuratively, barring them from becoming familiar with him. Several of them tried familiarity, and were astonished to discover that they had somehow failed—though they had been repelled so cleverly that they could not resent it.
Harlan had established a barrier without them being aware of how he had done it—the barrier of authority and respect, behind which he stood, an engaging, saturnine, interesting, awe-compelling figure.
At the end of a week the men of the Star outfit were addressing him as “boss;” listening to him with respect when he spoke, striving for his attention, and trying to win from him one of those rare smiles with which he honored those among them whose personalities interested him.
At the end of two weeks half of the Star outfit was eager to obey any order he issued, while the remainder betrayed some slight hesitation—which, however, vanished when Harlan turned his steady gaze upon them.
Behind their acceptance of him, though—back of their seeming willingness to admit him to their peculiar fellowship—was a reservation. Harlan felt it, saw it in their eyes, and noted it in their manner toward him. They had heard about him; they knew something of his record; reports of his cleverness with a weapon had come to them. And they were curious.
There was speculation in the glances they threw at him; there was some suspicion, cynicism, skepticism, and not a little doubt. It seemed to Harlan that though they had accepted him they were impatiently awaiting a practical demonstration of those qualities that had made him famous in the country. They wanted to be “shown.”
Their wild, unruly passions and lurid imaginations were the urges that drove them—that shaped their conduct toward their fellows. Some of them were rapid gunslingers—in the picturesque idioms of their speech—and there was not a man among them who did not take pride in his ability to “work” his gun. They had accepted Harlan, but it was obvious that among them were some that doubted the veracity of rumor—some who felt that Harlan had been overrated.