Joe rode back to Pinnacle City and stabled his tired horse. He had spent all his savings for a little four-room house on the outskirts of Pinnacle and had gone in debt for the furnishings. It was to have been their home.
Len Kelsey was asleep in the office when Joe came in and sat down at his desk. He woke up and looked curiously at Joe.
“Wondered where yuh was, Joe,” he said sleepily.
“Yeah?”
Joe drew out a sheet of paper, dipped a pen in the ink bottle and began writing. Kelsey turned over and went to sleep again.
Joe finished writing, folded the paper and walked out of the office. Just south of his office was the old two-story frame-building court-house, and as Joe started to enter the front door he met Jim Wheeler and Angus McLaren, chairman of the board of county commissioners.
McLaren was a big, raw-boned Scot who owned a general store in Kelo. McLaren, Ed Merrick and Ross Layton, of Ransome, composed the board of commissioners.
Joe Rich stopped short as he faced Jim Wheeler. For possibly five seconds the HJ cattleman stared at the sheriff of Tumbling River, and then, without a word, he struck Joe square in the face, knocking him out through the doorway, where Joe went to his haunches on the sidewalk, dazed, bleeding from his nose and mouth.
Quickly the big Scotsman stepped in front of Wheeler, grasping him with both hands.
“Stop it, Jim!” he ordered.