About the breakfast hour Las Vegas saddled his horse and rode back the way he had come the night before. At Turner's he called for something to eat as well as for whisky. After that he became a listening, watching machine. He drank freely for an hour; then he stopped. He seemed to be drunk, but with a different kind of drunkenness from that usual in drinking men. Savage, fierce, sullen, he was one to avoid. Turner waited on him in evident fear.
At length Las Vegas's condition became such that action was involuntary. He could not stand still nor sit down. Stalking out, he passed the store, where men slouched back to avoid him, and he went down the road, wary and alert, as if he expected a rifle-shot from some hidden enemy. Upon his return down that main thoroughfare of the village not a person was to be seen. He went in to Turner's. The proprietor was there at his post, nervous and pale. Las Vegas did not order any more liquor.
"Turner, I reckon I'll bore you next time I run in heah," he said, and stalked out.
He had the stores, the road, the village, to himself; and he patrolled a beat like a sentry watching for an Indian attack.
Toward noon a single man ventured out into the road to accost the cowboy.
"Las Vegas, I'm tellin' you--all the greasers air leavin' the range," he said.
"Howdy, Abe!" replied Las Vegas. "What 'n hell you talkin' about?"
The man repeated his information. And Las Vegas spat out frightful curses.
"Abe--you heah what Beasley's doin'?"
"Yes. He's with his men--up at the ranch. Reckon he can't put off ridin' down much longer."
That was where the West spoke. Beasley would be forced to meet the enemy who had come out single-handed against him. Long before this hour a braver man would have come to face Las Vegas. Beasley could not hire any gang to bear the brunt of this situation. This was the test by which even his own men must judge him. All of which was to say that as the wildness of the West had made possible his crimes, so it now held him responsible for them.
"Abe, if thet--greaser don't rustle down heah I'm goin' after him."
"Sure. But don't be in no hurry," replied Abe.
"I'm waltzin' to slow music.... Gimme a smoke."
With fingers that slightly trembled Abe rolled a cigarette, lit it from his own, and handed it to the cowboy.