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him to feel that he had a special companionship with this fellow Buchanan, and convinced him that he had some proprietary interest in the big stranger.
    He felt the same about the body of Hamp Leach.
    "Leave him lay!" little Mulchay commanded when more sensitive souls went to cover the sprawled corpse with an old horse blanket. "Leave him lay, boys. There's a lesson there for all of us."
    "Mr. Mulchay!" Rosemarie scolded.
    "There is, lass, there is!"
    "And what's the lesson?" Hamlin inquired.
    "The Sermon on the Mount," Mulchay recited. "And the meek shall inherit the earth."
    His audience heard and ran their eyes over the rough shod Buchanan, remembering the un - meekness in him when Leach had thrown down the gauntlet a few minutes ago. Someone on the fringe of the group laughed.
    "And what is humorous?" Mulchay demanded.
    "You," the man told him. "But you don't mean to be.""
    Mulchay was preparing a devastating rejoinder to that when Malcolm Lord appeared from the private room and began making his way out through the saloon proper.
    "Well, now," Mulchay said, shifting targets, "did we break up the big secret powwow? I notice you all scurryin' for home soon as the pistols start poppin'."
    "Mulchay," Lord said thinly, "I'll thank you to stay out of my affairs."
    "Somebody's got to watch you sharp. And where's your new friend, the Brownsville butcher boy?"
    "That mouth of yours," Lord said, pausing between the swinging doors, "is going to buy you an early grave. Mark my words!" He was gone then and Mulchay kept staring at the exit somberly.
    "Boys," he said at last, "there's trouble coming to the Big Bend. It'll be hell on horseback if we don't prepare ourselves, and quick."
    "You're always seeing trouble, Angus," Macintosh told him.
    "I see what's plain to see. Or do you think Black Jack Gibbons came to pay Scotstown a social call?"
    "What did he come for?"
    "We'll all find out soon enough," Mulchay predicted, "but by then it'll be too late."
    The men's voices sounded all around Buchanan's head like so many droning flies, and held about as much in terest to him. He was not geared for town life, had no feeling for it, and as he stood here now looking down into a half-empty whisky glass the big man was asking himself unhappily just what the hell kind of living he was meant for. From the top of the mountain the lights down here had looked warm and inviting, promising a night of companionship with other men. But all that had gone down the trough in sixty seconds, and when Fargo asked him what kind of good time did he have all he could answer was that he had killed a man he'd never even seen before.
    He raised his melancholy glance to find the girl watch ing him from the back bar. There had been the start of something there, too, he remembered, the possibility of a little harmless dallying that might have been good for both of them. But there was no mischief in her eyes now, no smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
    She's got you all pegged out, Buchanan told himself. You couldn't even get the right time from her now.
    "Drink up, laddie, and Rosemarie will pour another," Hamlin offered heartily.
    He shook his head and stood erect.
    "Had enough," he said. He thought, Enough of every thing for this night.
    "Where you off to?"
    "Going to take some air," he said, swinging from the bar.
    "But how about your money?" Hamlin protested and Buchanan looked over his shoulder at the currency and coins scattered on the floor.
    "Use it to bury him with," he said and walked out of the place, leaving a studied silence in his wake.
    "Now there's a type for ye," Macintosh commented.
    "Footloose and fancy-free," Angus Mulchay said. "Just like I was thirty years ago."
    "Ay, I saw the resemblance at once," Hamlin said. "Only you've shrunk a foot since your wild days."
    "Size ain't all. You notice I didn't shy from that bully when it was my chance."
    "And wound up on the back of your mugg."
    "Where d'ye suppose he came from?" Macintosh asked.
    "And