It was at the election following the one which made Mr. Masterson sheriff of Ford County that Mr. Kelly, proprietor of the Alhambra, became mayor of Dodge. Mr. Masterson, aside from being a natural captain of men, had had his genius for strategy ripened as a scout-pupil of the great Ben Clark during the Cheyenne wars, and on this ballot occasion contributed deeply to the victory of Mr. Kelly. Mr. Masterson came forward and withstood certain Mexicans, who otherwise would have exercised the ballot to Mr. Kelly’s disadvantage. The Mexicans belonged with the Cross-K brand, which had its range across the river; and since Mr. Walker, proprietor of the Cross-K, was an enemy of Mr. Kelly, they were rightfully regarded by Mr. Masterson as tools of the opposition. Mr. Masterson urged, and with justice, that an extension of the franchise to Mexicans would be subversive of good morals, and offensive to the purer sentiment of Dodge. “This is, or should be,” said Mr. Masterson, “a white man’s government, and how long, I ask, will it survive if Mexicans be permitted a voice in its affairs? If we are going to take the limit off in this ridiculous fashion we might as well send for Bear Shield’s band of Cheyennes and tell them to get into the game. To grant Mexicans the right to vote is to make preposterous that freedom for which our fathers fought and bled and died, and should republican institutions be thus trailed in the dust, I see nothing for it but an appeal to arms.” This long speech was made to the judges of election, who were fair men and friends of Mr. Kelly. There were ten of the Mexicans and the contest was close; the judges remembered these things, and the position taken by Mr. Masterson, in defence of an unsullied suffrage, was sustained. “It wasn’t worth a battle,” explained Mr. Walker in later comment on Mr. Masterson’s oration, “or I might have called that bluff of Bat’s about an appeal to arms.” When Mr. Kelly was inaugurated in the discharge of his high trust, his earliest feeling was one of favour to Mr. Masterson; for his majority had been but five, and Mr. Kelly was a grateful man. The situation at a first blink baffled the friendship of Mr. Kelly. What could he do for Mr. Masterson? The latter, as sheriff of Ford, already held an office superior even to that of Mr. Kelly’s. Clearly, Mr. Masterson was beyond and above the touch of his gratitude, as though it stood on tiptoe; he must sit down and suffer a sense of obligation which he could not discharge. These truths came home to him after hours of profound thought, and he sighed as he reflected on his helplessness.