Then he drove cattle into Kansas over the Chisholm and Western trails and got further seasoning in warfare against marauders, both red and white. To maintain his rights and hold his property against armed assault had become part of his every-day life; guardedness was a habit like those narrowed eyes. And when he recognized the Man from Bitter Creek, whose reputation he well knew, he lost no time in confronting him.
So they faced each other, two veteran paladins who had been riding under hostile banners ever since they first bore arms; and John Slaughter delivered his ultimatum in three syllables.
“Hit the trail,” he said, and clamped his lips into a tight line as if he begrudged wasting that many words.
His eyes had become two dark slits.
It was a case of leave or fight and the Man from Bitter Creek had never allowed such a challenge to go unanswered by his gun. But during the moment while he and John Slaughter stood looking into each other’s eyes he reflected swiftly, and it occurred to him that it would be wise to postpone this killing until the cattle-buyer had brought the herd on into the upper country where, without their employer, the Mexican vaqueros would be of no more consequence than so many sheep.
That was an inspiration: thousands of cattle for his own, where he had hoped to steal a few hundred at the very outside. He felt that he could well afford to mount his pony and ride away in silence. Now as he settled himself in his saddle after that last look backward, his heart was light with the thought of the wealth which was to come to him within the next two 163 months. He urged the pony forward at a gallop toward the Land Beyond the Law.
The days went by, and late springtime found the Man from Bitter Creek in the upper river country which lies just west of the great Llano Estacado. Among those lonely hills the badness of the whole frontier had crystallized that year. Outlaw and murderer, renegade, rustler, and common horse-thief––all for whom the eastern trails had been growing too hot––had ridden into this haven beyond the range of the boldest sheriff until even the vigilance committee could not function here for the simple reason that there were too many to adorn the ropes and too few to pull them.
The ranchers of Lincoln County were starting in business, and the temptation to increase one’s herds by means of rope and running-iron––a temptation which was always strong on the frontier––was augmented among some by a wholesome regard for their own lives and property: better to give shelter to outlaws and buy stolen cows for a dollar or two a head, than to defend your own stock against an overwhelming force of dead shots. There were others––and these included several of the bigger cow-men––who held that this was their territory and, deeming all outsiders interlopers, levied such toll of plunder on them as the old feudal barons levied on travelers by the Rhine in medieval times.
That was the way they reasoned; and the rustlers had easy pickings, stampeding range cattle across the bedding-grounds of the trail herds, gathering unto themselves the strays, disposing of their loot right on the spot. They were taking full advantage of the opportunity, 164 and the Man from Bitter Creek was getting his share of the spoils.