To a man like Jim Dandy politics or war might not be all-important. And the fact that he had known the households of both Oak Hill and Red Springs could count for a better reception now. At least they could try. "No use you gettin' into anything," Drew told the Texan. "You and Boyd go on! I'll take Croxton in and see if they'll take care of him." Kirby looked back down the road. "Don't see no hostile sign heah 'bouts," he drawled. "Guess we can spare us some time to bed him down proper on th' right range. Maybeso you'll find them in theah as leery of strangers as a rustler of the sheriff--" The Texan's references might be obscure, but he helped Drew transfer Croxton from the precarious balance in the wounded man's own saddle to Drew's hold, and then rode at a walking pace beside the scout while Boyd trailed with the led horse. There was a pounding of hoofs on the road behind. A half dozen riders went by the mouth of the land at a distance-eating gallop. In spite of the dust which layered them Drew saw they were not Union. "Them boys keep that gait up," Kirby remarked, "an' they ain't gonna make it far 'fore their tongues hang out 'bout three feet an' forty inches. That ain't no way to waste good hoss flesh." "Got a good hold on him?" he asked Drew a moment later. At the other's nod he rode forward into the yard at the end of the lane. "Hullo, the house!" he called. A man came out of the stable, walking with a kind of hop-skip step. His blond head was bare, silver fair in contrast to Boyd's corn yellow, and his features were thin and sharp. It was Jim Dandy, himself. "What's all this now?" he asked in that high voice Drew had last heard discussing the virtues of rival horse liniments at Red Springs. And he did not look particularly welcoming. "Mr. Dandy--" Drew walked his horse on, Croxton sagging in his hold, his weight a heavy pull on his bearer's tired arms--"do you remember me? Drew Rennie, of Red Springs." He added that quickly for what small guarantee of respectability the identification might give. Certainly in his present guise he did not look Alexander Mattock's grandson. Dandy rested his weight on his good leg and swung his shorter one a little ahead. And his hand went to the loose front of his white shirt. "Now that's a right unfriendly move, suh. I take it right unfriendly to show hardware 'fore you know the paint on our faces--" The smaller man's hand fell away from his concealed weapon, but Kirby did not reholster the Colt which had appeared through some feat of lightning movement in his grip. "You're not going to take _my_ horses!" Even if there was no gun in Dandy's hand, his voice stated a fact they could not doubt he meant. "Nobody's takin' hosses," the Texan answered. "This heah soldier's got him a mighty sore head, an' he needs some fixin'. We ain't too popular round heah right now, an' he can't ride. So--"