That summer of patient toil and sturdy thought spent high in the mountains with the sheep had brought to Justin the knowledge that he was now a man. As a man he was beginning to feel that he must do something, must set about the work of making a place and a name for himself in the world. Influenced by the idealist, Clayton, and by his love for Lucy, he had heretofore fed on love and dreams. He still loved, and he still dreamed, but he knew now that to these must be added action and accomplishment.
No one understood Ben Davison’s unworthiness more thoroughly than Justin. Because of the influence of his father and the support given to his candidacy by a tricky politician Ben was apparently on the high road to political preferment and honors. His name was mentioned in the Denver dailies, and his picture was in the county paper.
Philip Davison was pleased, probably Lucy was pleased also, and Justin felt that he really ought to look upon the matter in a kindly and amiable light. Yet, even as he thought so, he felt his heart burning.
“I might have had that nomination, if things had been different!”
That was Justin’s thought. He knew to the core of his being that in every way he was better qualified than Ben Davison to fill that important place. He had not only mental but moral qualities which Ben totally lacked. In addition, the position and the honor appealed to his growing desire to be something and do something. It would give opportunity to talents which he was sure he possessed. Denver represented the great world beyond, where men struggled for the things worth while. Ben Davison would go to Denver, become a member of the legislature, and would have the doors of possibility opened to him, when he had not the ability nor the moral stamina to walk through them when they were opened, and he—Justin—would remain—a cowboy.
When Justin reached the town, which consisted of a double row of frame houses strung along the railroad track, he hitched the bronchos to the pole in front of one of the stores and proceeded to the purchase of the groceries required by the housekeeper. That done he walked to the postoffice for the ranch mail. As he came out with it in his hands and began to look over the county paper, where he saw Ben Davison’s name and political qualifications blazoned, he observed several men converging toward a low building. Over its door was a sign, “Justice of the Peace.”
“Arkwright’s got a trial on to-day,” said one of the men, speaking to him. “You ranchers air gittin’ pugnacious. Borden has brought suit against Sam Turner for the killin’ of them cattle. I s’pose you heard about it?”
Justin’s interest was aroused. He was acquainted with both Arkwright and Borden, and he knew of the killing of the cattle, but he had not heard of the lawsuit. Borden’s ranch lay over beyond the first mesa, along Pine Creek. It had been established since the Davison ranch. Not all the line between the two ranches was fenced, and the open line Justin had ridden for a time with one of Borden’s cowboys.
There were a few settlers along Pine Creek, one of them being Sam Turner, a young farmer from Illinois. Justin remembered Turner well, and Turner’s wife, a timid little woman wholly unfit for the life she was compelled to live in this new country. She had a deathly fear of Borden’s cowboys, a fear that was too often provoked by their actions. They were chiefly Mexicans and half-breeds, a wild lot, much given to drinking, and often when they came riding home from the town in their sprees they came with their bronchos at a dead run, firing their revolvers and yelling like Indians as they swept by Turner’s house. Whenever she saw them coming Mrs. Turner would catch up her little girl in her arms, dart into the house, lock and bar the doors, and pull down the blinds. The cowboys observed this, and it aroused them to even wilder demonstrations; so that now they never passed Turner’s without a fusillade and a demoniacal outburst of yells.
The death of the cattle had come about through no fault of Turner. They had simply broken down a fence during a storm, and getting into Turner’s sorghum had so gorged themselves with the young plants that some of them had died. It did not seem to matter to Borden that Turner’s sorghum had been devoured. In his rage over his loss Turner had threatened violence, and Borden was answering with this suit for damages for the loss of the cattle.