“I’m becoming downright weary of listening to warnings,” he fretfully declared. “Never a day goes by but what some friendly soul drops past to inform me that Wellman and Freel are scheming to play it low-down on me. Every man in the county must know it by now.” “The most of them,” Carver agreed. “If anything was to happen to us now there’d be five hundred men rise up and point out to their friends that they’d been predicting that very thing--that they’d been telling ’em all along how Wellman and Freel was planning to murder us some night.” “It’s nice to know that we’ll be vindicated after we’re dead,” said Bart. “But I was wondering if there maybe wasn’t some method by which we could go right on living even if we don’t get quite so much credit for our part in the affair. Personally I don’t approve of trifling round trying to set the whole county on their trail when one man could terminate their wickedness in two brief seconds.” “But it’s paved the way for the clean-up of the county seat,” said Carver. “Let’s you and me ride over and clean it up in the old wild way,” Bart urged. “Only we’ll let them ride out here,” Carver substituted. “That background I was speaking about a while back is all arranged.” “I’m glad you’re satisfied with the background,” Bart returned. “I still maintain that I ought to secrete myself behind a sprig of scrub oak and wait until Freel comes riding into the foreground. That way we’d take ’em front and rear. But anyway suits me, if only it transpires soon.” “Real soon now,” Carver promised. He turned to a grub-liner who was saddling his horse in the corral. “You’ll find Mattison waiting in the hotel at Casa,” he informed. “He’ll be expecting the message. Tell him just this: That my time has come to deputize him. He’ll know what to do. Then you forget it.” He turned back to Bart. “Real soon now,” he repeated. “That’s the chief reason why Hinman and old Nate insisted on taking Molly over to enjoy herself at the fair.” The girl was, in all truth, enjoying herself at the fair. It was as old Joe Hinman remarked to a group of friends in the lobby of Wellman’s hotel. “Nate and me are giving the little girl a vacation,” he said. “First time she’s been away from that homestead overnight since Bart filed on it. She thinks a lot of that little place, Molly does. Even now she won’t be persuaded to stay away but one night. We’ll take her up to Caldwell this evening to buy a few women’s fixings and show her the best time we can but she’ll come traipsing back home to-morrow. Can’t keep her away. Carver had to promise to go over and stay all night with Bart so no one could steal that homestead while she’s gone.”