Charlton kept morosely to the park.  If he had had nothing to consider except his own inclination, he would have slapped the saddle upon a cowpony and ridden in to Battle Butte at once.  But Beulah had laid an interdict upon him.  For a year he had been trying to persuade her to marry him, and he knew that he must say good-bye to his hopes if he fought with his enemy.

It was fear that kept Meldrum at home.  He had been a killer, but the men he had killed had been taken at advantage.  It was one thing to shoot this Beaudry cub down from ambush.  It was another to meet him in the open.  Moreover, he knew the Rutherfords.  The owner of the horse ranch had laid the law down to him.  No chance shot from the chaparral was to cut down Dingwell’s partner.

The ex-convict listened to the whispers of Tighe.  He brooded over them, but he did not act on them.  His alcohol-dulled brain told him that he had reached the limit of public sufferance.  One more killing by him, and he would pay the penalty at the hands of the law.  When he took his revenge, it must be done so secretly that no evidence could connect him with the crime.  He must, too, have an alibi acceptable to Hal Rutherford.

Meldrum carried with him to Battle Butte, on his first trip after the arcade affair, a fixed determination to avoid Beaudry.  In case he met him, he would pass without speaking.

But all of Meldrum’s resolutions were apt to become modified by subsequent inhibitions.  In company with one or two cronies he made a tour of the saloons of the town.  At each of them he said, “Have another,” and followed his own advice to show good faith.

On one of these voyages from port to port the bad man from Chicito Canon sighted a tall, lean-flanked, long-legged brown man.  He was crossing the street so that the party came face to face with him at the apex of a right angle.  The tanned stranger in corduroys, hickory shirt, and pinched-in hat of the range rider was Royal Beaudry.  It was with a start of surprise that Meldrum recognized him.  His enemy was no longer a “pink-ear.”  There was that in his stride, his garb, and the steady look of his eye which told of a growing confidence and competence.  He looked like a horseman of the plains, fit for any emergency that might confront him.

Taken at advantage by the suddenness of the meeting, Meldrum gave ground with a muttered oath.  The young cattleman nodded to the trio and kept on his way.  None of the others knew that his heart was hammering a tattoo against his ribs or that queer little chills chased each other down his spine.

Chet Fox ventured a sly dig at the ex-convict.  “Looks a right healthy sick man, Dan.”

“Who said he was sick?” growled Meldrum.

“Didn’t you-all say he was good as dead?”

“A man can change his mind, Chet, can’t he?” jeered Hart.

The blotched face of the bad man grew purple.  “That’ll be about enough from both of you.  But I’ll say this:  when I get ready to settle with Mr. Beaudry you can order his coffin.”