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When Kelley came back to her door, with intent to thank her for what she had done, he found the room full of excited men, and with instinctive delicacy passed on his way, not wishing to involve her in the story of the arrest.

It appeared that all the men of the town who thrived by lawlessness and vice now decided to take up Mink’s case and make his discharge an issue. A sudden demonstration of their political power brought the judge to terms. He weakened. The gambler was released with a fine of one hundred dollars and a warning to keep the peace, and by noon of the following day was back in his den, more truculent than ever.

Kelley was properly indignant. “But the man tried to kill me!” he protested to the court.

“He swears not,” replied the justice. “We have punished him for resisting an officer. That is the best we can do.”

“What about Jake?”

“Oh, well! That was ‘war.’ Jake had a gun, and Mink is able to prove that he shot in self-defense. Furthermore, he has settled with Jake.”

Kelley argued no more. He could have called Rosa in as a witness to the attempt upon his life, but to do so would expose her to public comment, and her big, solemn, worshipful eyes had already produced in him a vague pity. Without understanding fully her feeling, he knew that she looked up to him, and he perceived that she was born to sorrow in larger measure than she deserved. Sallow, thin, boyish, she gave promise of a kind of beauty which would sometime make her desired of both white men and brown.

“Poor little mongrel!” he said to himself. “She’s in for misery enough without worrying over me.”

* * * * *

“Well, I’m up against it now,” Kelley remarked to Dad Miller, Hornaby’s foreman, the next time he met him. “Mink’s friends have thrown a scare into the judge and he has turned that coyote loose against me. Looks like I had one of two things to do–kill the cuss or jump the town.”

“Shoot him on sight,” advised Miller.

“If I do that I’m ‘in bad’ with the court,” Kelley argued. “You see, when I took him before, I had the law on my side. Now it’s just man to man–until he commits another crime. Killing me wouldn’t be a crime.”

“That’s so,” mused his friend. “You’re cinched any way you look at it.”

Kelley went on: “Moreover, some of my greaser friends have started a line of fool talk about making me sheriff, and that has just naturally set the whole political ring against me. They’d just as soon I got killed as not–a little sooner. I’ve a right to resign, haven’t I? Nobody has a license to call me a coward after what I’ve done, have they?”

“No license; but I reckon they will, all the same,” responded his friend.

Kelley’s face hardened. “Well, I’ll disappoint ’em. I’m going to stay with it.” However, he went to the mayor and voiced his resentment of the court’s action.

His Honor pretended to be greatly concerned. “Now, don’t quit on us, Ed. Hornaby expects you to stay put. You’re the only man who can clean up the town. You’ve done great work already, and we appreciate it. In fact, we’re going to raise your pay.”

“Pay to a corpse don’t count,” retorted Kelley. “It’s a question of backing. You fellows have got to stand behind me.”

“We’ll do it, Ed. Only, Hornaby thinks you’d better put a card in the paper saying that you have no intention of going into politics.”

“Oh, hell!” said Kelley, disgustedly. “Is Hornaby suspicious of me, too? Well, for that I’ve a mind to run,” and he went out in deep disgust.

As the days went by and no open movement against him took place, his vigilance somewhat relaxed. Mink kept to his lair like some treacherous, bloodthirsty animal, which was a bad sign.