“Yuh track ’em? Where did they go?”
“Yeh, I follered them clear to the head of the canyon an’ then come back. Yuh see, I’m town marshal, an’ we got a tough bunch of hombres hangin’ aroun’ here, so I got to sorter stick close to town an’ not go trackin’ across the mountains.” Bill Tucker flushed beneath Allen’s direct appraisal and floundered in his explanation.
“Why for d’yuh let these here tough hombres hang aroun’?” Allen asked quickly.
“Why for? ’Cause—why, there’s a bunch of ’em, an’ I sorta figgered to let the past slide, so long as the boys behaved,” Bill Tucker said uneasily. His eyes refused to meet Jack Allen’s direct gaze and glanced furtively about the room.
“All right. The first thing to do, then, is to make a list of all the gents what is not workin’, an’ all them who have a reward on ’em or are known to be bad ones, an’ tell ’em to get out of town,” the Wyoming sheriff said quietly.
“Would yuh put your brother, Jim Allen, on that list?” Steve Brandon barked.
“Yes!” Jack Allen snapped.
The miners regarded Allen curiously. Instinctively they knew he spoke the truth and would lock his own brother in jail if called upon to do so in the line of duty. Here was a man who made a fetish of honesty. Some of them had heard of him by reputation. Honest, hard, relentless in his pursuit of outlaws, he was known to be just. He cared nothing about the rewards for the outlaws he sought; having cleaned up a town or county, he would silently fade away, none the richer for his work.
After a general discussion, it was agreed that Jack Allen was to be given a free hand in the gulch. For a long while Bill Tucker insisted he should have authority within the town limits, but at length he was forced to give way and to agree to take orders from Allen.
Later, as Hard-rock Hogan and Pop Howes were walking up the starlit gulch toward their homes, they both chuckled as they recalled Bill Tucker’s expression when Jack Allen questioned him.