The rustler did not wait to answer. He vanished through the door and fled down the alley in the direction of the corral. Overstreet could do as he pleased, but he intended to slap a saddle on his horse and make tracks for the cap-rock country. Overstreet himself was not precisely comfortable in his mind, but he did not intend to let a smooth-faced boy run him out of the gambling-house before a dozen witnesses. If he had to fight, he would fight. But in his heart he cursed Gurley for a yellow-backed braggart. The fellow had got him into this and then turned tail. The man from Colorado wished devoutly that Pete Dinsmore were beside him. "You're talkin' at me, young fellow. Listen: I ain't lookin' for any trouble with you--none a-tall. But I'm not Steve Gurley. Where I come from, folks grow man-size. Don't lean on me too hard. I'm liable to decrease the census of red-haired guys." Overstreet rose and glared at him, but at the same time one hand was reaching for his hat. "You leavin' town too, Mr. Overstreet?" inquired the Ranger. "What's it to you? I'll go when I'm ready." "'We shall meet, but we shall miss you--there will be one vacant chair,'" murmured the young officer, misquoting a song of the day. "Seems like there's nothin' to this life but meetin' an' partin'. Here you are one minute, an' in a quarter of an hour you're hittin' the high spots tryin' to catch up with friend Steve." "Who said so? I'll go when I'm good an' ready," reiterated the bad-man. "Well, yore bronc needs a gallop to take the kinks out of his legs. Give my regards to the Dinsmores an' tell 'em that Tascosa is no sort of place for shorthorns or tinhorns." "Better come an' give them regards yore own self." "Mebbe I will, one of these glad mo'nin's. So long, Mr. Overstreet. Much obliged to you an' Steve for not massacreein' me." The ironic thanks of the Ranger were lost, for the killer from Colorado was already swaggering out of the front door. The old Confederate gave a whoop of delight. "I never did see yore match, you doggoned old scalawag. You'd better go up into Mexico and make Billy the Kid[6] eat out of yore hand. This tame country is no place for you, Jack." Roberts made his usual patient explanation. "It's the law. They can't buck the whole Lone Star State. If he shot me, a whole passel of Rangers would be on his back pretty soon. So he hits the trail instead." He turned to Ridley, who had just come into the Silver Dollar. "Art, will you keep cases on Overstreet an' see whether he leaves town right away?" A quarter of an hour later Ridley was back with information. "Overstreet's left town--lit out after Gurley." The old Rebel grinned. "He won't catch him this side of the cap-rock." [Footnote 6: Billy The Kid was the most notorious outlaw of the day. He is said to have killed twenty-one men before Sheriff Pat Garrett killed him at the age of twenty-one years.] CHAPTER XXVI FOR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES