The branding pen was just at the edge of the timber on the near side of the creek. Harliss was not over-particular as to the ownership of the calves branded. His pen was well concealed.

One morning we were branding the cattle. Five men rode up, nodded to Harliss and began stripping off the meat from the carcass hanging in the trees. One of them came over to me.

"Reckon you don't remember me? Reckon you uster work on the Lazy Z for my father?"

He knew of the shooting in Las Cruces. He knew of my brother's murder. He knew I had a fast gun and a close mouth. He told me of a robbery that had been pulled off on the Sante Fe.

"Ain't much in range work," he ended. "Reckon you'll join us yet."

He was a shrewd prophet. Not more than a month later John Harliss was sitting on the porch of the ranch house. I was standing in the door. A nester rode up. We knew that something had happened.

The nester comes only to bring news. If there's one fellow in the world that loves gossip it's these puffy little farmers that nestle in the flats. It makes them big with importance.

John Harliss was a blond giant. He towered over the blustering nester.

"Ain't heard the news, hev ye?" Then he caught sight of me and added furtively. "They cleared the fellows that killed Jennings' brother."

Houston and Love free!

The thing I had been dreading and expecting for six months came now with a shock that sent a cold fury of resolution through me. I knew that I would have to do deliberately what I should have done in passion.

It was not blood-lust, but raging vindictiveness that spurred ire on the 75-mile ride to my father's house.

The hoofbeats stopping at his door aroused him. When he saw me, he stood as one petrified.

"Lo, your honor!" I put out my hand. He did not take it.

"What have you been doing?'" Never had I seen his eye so cold, so hostile. "What does this mean?" He reached into his pocket, took out a folded hand-bill and offered it for me to read.