Cullison and his friends proceeded down Papago street to the old plaza where their hotel was located. Their transit was an interrupted one, for these four cattlemen were among the best known in the Southwest. All along the route they scattered nods of recognition, friendly greetings, and genial banter. One of them--the man who had formerly been the hard-riding, quick-shooting sheriff of the county--met also scowls once or twice, to which he was entirely indifferent. Luck had no slavish respect for law, had indeed, if rumor were true, run a wild and stormy course in his youth. But his reign as sheriff had been a terror to lawbreakers. He had made enemies, desperate and unscrupulous ones, who had sworn to wipe him from among the living, and one of these he was now to meet for the first time since the man had stood handcuffed before him, livid with fury, and had sworn to cut his heart out at the earliest chance. It was in the lobby of the hotel that Cullison came plump against Lute Blackwell. For just a moment they stared at each other before the former sheriff spoke. "Out again, eh, Blackwell?" he said easily. From the bloodshot eyes one could have told at a glance the man had been drinking heavily. From whiskey he had imbibed a Dutch courage just bold enough to be dangerous. "Yes, I'm out--and back again, just as I promised, Mr. Sheriff," he threatened. The cattleman ignored his manner. "Then I'll give you a piece of advice gratis. Papago County has grown away from the old days. It has got past the two-gun man. He's gone to join the antelope and the painted Indian. You'll do well to remember that." The fellow leaned forward, sneering so that his ugly mouth looked like a crooked gash. "How about the one-gun man, Mr. Sheriff?" "He doesn't last long now." "Doesn't he?" The man's rage boiled over. But Luck was far and away the quicker of the two. His left hand shot forward and gripped the rising wrist, his right caught the hairy throat and tightened on it. He shook the convict as if he had been a child, and flung him, black in the face, against the wall, where he hung, strangling and sputtering. "I--I'll get you yet," the ruffian panted. But he did not again attempt to reach for the weapon in his hip pocket. "You talk too much with your mouth." With superb contempt, Luck slapped him, turned on his heel, and moved away, regardless of the raw, stark lust to kill that was searing this man's elemental brain.