This, however, was something which he would not believe, no matter what testimony his eyes gave him.  He rode up to a shuttered window and kicked it with his heel.

Only the echoes of that racket replied to him from the interior of the place.  He swore, somewhat touched with awe, and kicked again.

A faint voice called:  “Who’s there?”

“Steve Nash.  What the devil’s happened to Eldara?”

The boards of the shutter stirred, opened, so that the man within could look out.

“Is it Steve, honest?”

“Damn it, Butler, don’t you know my voice?  What’s turned Eldara into a cemetery?”

“Cemetery’s right.  ‘Butch’ Conklin and his gang are going to raid the place to-night.”

“Butch Conklin?”

And Nash whistled long and low.

“But why the devil don’t the boys get together if they know Butch is coming with his gunmen?”

“That’s what they’ve done.  Every able-bodied man in town is out in the hills trying to surprise Conklin’s gang before they hit town with their guns going.”

Butler was a one-legged man, so Nash kept back the question which naturally formed in his mind.

“How do they know Conklin is coming?  Who gave the tip?”

“Conklin himself.”

“What?  Has he been in town?”

“Right.  Came in roaring drunk.”

“Why’d they let him get away again?”

“Because the sheriff’s a bonehead and because our marshal is solid ivory.  That’s why.”

“What happened?”

“Butch came in drunk, as I was saying, which he generally is, but he wasn’t giving no trouble at all, and nobody felt particular called on to cross him and ask questions.  He was real sociable, in fact, and that’s how the mess was started.”

“Go on.  I don’t get your drift.”

“Everybody was treatin’ Butch like he was the king of the earth and not passin’ out any backtalk, all except one tenderfoot——­”

But here a stream of tremendous profanity burst from Nash.  It rose, it rushed on, it seemed an exhaustless vocabulary built up by long practice on mustangs and cattle.

At length:  “Is that damned fool in Eldara?”

“D’you know him?”

“No.  Anyway, go on.  What happened?”

“I was sayin’ that Butch was feelin’ pretty sociable.  It went all right in the bars.  He was in here and didn’t do nothin’ wrong.  Even paid for all the drinks for everybody in the house, which nobody could ask more even from a white man.  But then Butch got hungry and went up the street to Sally Fortune’s place.”

A snarl came from Nash.

“Did they let that swine go in there?”

“Who’d stop him?  Would you?”

“I’d try my damnedest.”

“Anyway, in he went and got the centre table and called for ten dollars’ worth of bacon and eggs—­which there hasn’t been an egg in Eldara this week.  Sally, she told him, not being afraid even of Butch.  He got pretty sore at that and said that it was a frame-up and everyone was ag’in’ him.  But finally he allowed that if she’d sit down to the table and keep him company he’d manage to make out on whatever her cook had ready to eat.”