There was Cole and the Mexicans he had hired to build the fence and clear his land. There was the usual gathering of riff-raff at Webb's. And there was Sam McKee, the coward, who was not reckoned as a menace by Beck and who, in later days, was to figure so largely! Another piece of news the Reverend brought: "They're talkin' about you in town, brother. They're saying that now some of this thieving will stop. They're looking to you to clean up the country." "Ain't that a lot of responsibility to put on one peaceful citizen?" Beck asked, but though he jested over the fact he did not fail to appreciate its significance. "Be cautious. These men are without scruple, brother." "And so am I ... but I got lots of luck, Reverend!" was his parting. He needed his luck. Riding alone, under a rim rock, with the country falling away to the westward, he speculated on his luck and on the talisman Jane had given him. He drew the locket from his shirt front and held it on his big palm eyeing the thing, wondering what it contained that Jane had wanted to conceal from him. "I've got a half grown notion to open it," he muttered and stopped his horse shortly. And he might have sprung the lid had not a zipping and a dull, dead spatter on the rock just ahead caught his attention. He looked up sharply, saw the stain of metal against the ledge and saw in the sunlight a fragment of the bullet that had shattered itself there, that would have drilled him had his horse taken the next step. Whoever fired had calculated on that next step because he was at such a distance that no report of a rifle reached him. Beck turned his horse and raced to cover and lay for an hour scanning the country, but his assailant did not appear. When Tom rode away he smiled grimly to himself and said to the roan: "We won't look in it now. Stoppin' to consider saved our skin that time; maybe we'll need that luck again ... and worse." Another time, the same week, he threw his bed on a pack horse and started a two-day ride to the south-east for, as foreman, he gave close heed to the detail of his work. At sundown he made camp and while his coffee boiled stripped himself and bathed luxuriously in a waterhole. He lay looking upward at the stars that night thinking more of Jane Hunter than her property, thrilling at memory of her hair and eyes and lips, telling himself that conditions were reversed now, and that instead of fighting her off, evading her charms, he was consumed with an eagerness for them. Drowsiness came and, turning on his side, he reached a hand for the locket to hold it fast while he slept. It was not about his neck. He remembered that he had left it on a rock where he had undressed for his bath and, slipping out of his blankets, turning them back that the night chill might not dampen his bed, he picked his way carefully to the place and groped for the trinket.