Finn hit the ground in a cloud of dust, and as a roar went up from the crowd, he leaped to his feet and smashed Leibman back on his heels with a wicked right to the jaw. Leibman ducked under another punch and tried to throw Mahone with a rolling hip-lock. It failed when Mahone grabbed him and they both rumbled into the dust. Finn was up first, and stepped back, wiping the dust from his lips. Leibman charged, and Finn sidestepped, hooking a left to the bigger man's ear.
Leibman pulled his head down behind his shoulder. Then he rushed, feinted, and hit Mahone with a wicked left that knocked him into the dust. He went in, trying to kick, but Finn caught his foot and twisted, throwing Leibman off balance.
Finn was on his feet then, and the two men came together and began to slug. The big German was tough; he had served his apprenticeship in a hard school. He took a punch to the gut, gasped a long breath, and lunged. Then Finn stepped back and brought up a right uppercut that broke Leibman's nose.
Finn walked in, his left a flashing streak now. It stabbed and cut, ripping Leibman's face to ribbons. Suddenly, Judge Collins realized something that few in the crowd understood. Until now, Mahone had been playing with the big man. What happened after that moment was sheer murder.
The left was a lancet in the shape of a fist. The wicked right smashed again and again into Leibman's body, or clubbed his head. Once Finn caught Leibman by the arm and twisted him sharply, at the same time bringing up a smashing right uppercut. Punch-drunk and swaying, Leibman was a gory, beaten mass of flesh and blood.
Finn looked at him coolly, then measured him with a left and drove a right to the chin that sounded when it hit like an ax hitting a log. Leibman fell, all in one piece.
Without a word or a glance around, Finn walked to his saddle and picked up his shirt. Then he dug into his saddlebags and took out a worn towel. Judge Collins came over to him. 'Better put these on first,' he said.
Finn glanced at him sharply, then smiled. 'I reckon I had,' he said. He mopped himself with the towel, then slid into his shirt. With the guns strapped on his lean hips, he felt better.
His knuckles were skinned despite the hardness of his hands. He looked up at Collins. 'Looks like they were figurin' on trouble.'
'That's right. There's rumors around, son. You better watch yourself.'
'Thanks.' Mahone swung into the saddle. As he turned the horse he glanced to the boardwalk and saw the girl watching him. Beside her was a tall, handsome man with powerful shoulders. He smiled grimly, and turned the horse away down the street, walking him slowly.
Texas Dowd appeared at Logan's elbow. Pierce turned and handed him a hundred dollars. 'You'd seen him fight before?' he asked.
Dowd shrugged. 'Could be. He's fought before.'
'Yes,' Logan said thoughtfully, 'he has.' He glanced at Dowd again. 'What do you know about him?'
Texas Dowd's face was inscrutable. 'That he's a good man to leave alone,' he said flatly.
Dowd turned stiffly and strode away. Nettled, Logan stared after him. 'Where did you find him?' he asked.
Remy smiled faintly. 'He came up over the border when I was away at school. Dad liked the way he played poker. He started working for us, and Dad made him foreman. There was a gunman around who was making trouble. I never really got it straight, but the gunman died. I heard Dad telling one of the hands about it.'
Behind them Texas Dowd headed down the street. He made one brief stop at Lettie Mason's gambling hall and emerged tucking a single playing card into his breast pocket. Then he mounted his horse and rode hard down the trail toward the Highbinders ...
Finn Mahone walked the black only to the edge of town, then broke the stallion into a canter and rapidly put some miles behind him. Yet no matter how far or fast he rode, he could not leave the girl behind him. He had seen Remy Kastelle, and something about her gave him a lift, sent fire into his veins. Several times he was on the verge of wheeling the horse and heading back.
She was his nearest neighbor, her range running right up to the Rimrock. But beyond the Rimrock nobody ever tried to come. Finn slowed the black to a walk again, scowling as he rode. His holdings were eighty miles from Rawhide where Alcorn and Leibman lived. There was no reason for them jumping him, unless they needed a scapegoat. The talk about rustling was building up, and if they could pin it on him, there were plenty of people who would accept it as gospel.
People were always suspicious of anyone who kept to himself. Nobody knew the Highbinder country like he did. If they had guessed he had nearly five thousand acres of top grassland, there might have been others trying to horn in.
Crystal Valley, watered by Crystal Creek, which flowed into the Laird, was not just one valley, it was three. In the first, where his home was, there were scarcely three hundred acres. In the second there were more than a thousand acres, and in the third, over three thousand. There was always water here, even in the driest weather, and the grass always grew tall. Three times the number of cattle he now had could never have kept it down.
High, rocky walls with very few passes made it impossible for cattle to stray. The passes were okay for a man on foot, or in one or two cases, a man on a mountain horse, but nothing more.
After a while he reined in and looked off across the rolling country toward the Kastelle spread. It was a good ranch, and Remy was making it a better one' She knew cattle, or she had someone with her who did. He smiled bitterly because he knew just who that someone was.
Finn Mahone got down from his horse and rolled an'd lighted a cigarette. As he faced north, he looked toward the Kastelle ranch with its Lazy K brand. Southwest of him was Mclnnis and his Spur outfit. The Mclnnis ranch was small, but well handled, and until lately, prosperous.
East of him was the town of Laird, and south and just a short distance west of Laird, the P Slash L ranch of Pierce Logan.
Northeast of town was Van Brewster's Lazy S, and north of that, the hamlet of Rawhide. Rawhide was a settlement of ranchers, small ranchers such as Banty Hull, Alcorn, Leibman, Ringer Cobb, Ike Hibby, Frank Salter, and Montana Kerr. It was also the hangout of Byrn Sonntag.
He had not been joking when he suggested the best way to look for rustlers was with a pen and ink. There are few brands that cannot be altered, and it was a curious thing that the brands of the small group of cattlemen who centered in Rawhide could be changed very easily into Brewster's Lazy S or Mclnnis's Spur.
Finn Mahone was a restless man. There was little to do on his range much of the time, so when not reading or working around the place, he rode. And his riding had taken him far eastward along the ridge of the Highbinders, eastward almost as far as Rawhide.
Mounting, Finn turned the stallion toward the dim trail that led toward the Notch. It was a trail not traveled but by himself. A trail no one showed any desire to follow.
Ahead of him a Joshua tree thrust itself up from the plain. It was a lone sentinel, the only one of its kind in many miles. He glanced at it and was about to ride by when something caught his eye. He reined the horse around and rode closer. Thrust into the fiber of the tree was a playing card. A hole had been shot through each corner.
'Well, I'll be damned!' he said. 'Texas Dowd. He finally figured out I was here ' His comment to the stallion stopped abruptly, and he replaced the card, looking at it thoughtfully. Then, on a sudden inspiration, he wheeled the stallion and rode off fifty feet or so, then turned the horse again. His hand flashed and a gun was in it. He fired four times as rapidly as he could trigger the gun. Then he turned the horse and rode away.
There were four more holes in the card, just inside the others. A message had been sent, and now the reply given.
The great wall of the Rimrock loomed up on his left. It was a sheer, impossible precipice from two to six hundred feet high and running for all of twelve miles. For twenty miles further there was no way over except on foot. It was wild country across the Rim, and not even Finn Mahone had ever explored it thoroughly.
Straight ahead was the great rift in the wall. Sheer rock on one side, a steep slope on the other. Down the bottom ran the roaring, brawling Laird River, a tumbling rapids with many falls. The trail to Crystal Valley skirted the stream and the sheer cliff. Eight feet wide, it narrowed to four, and ran on for three miles, never wider than that.
After that it crossed the Laird three times, then disappeared at a long shale bank that offered no sign of a trail. The shale had a tendency to shift and slide at the slightest wrong move. It was that shale bank that defeated ingress to the valley. There was a way across. An outlaw had shown it to Finn, and he'd heard it from an
