Chapter II

“Cold feet?”

“Horrible!” said Anastacio.

Matthew Lisner, sheriff of Dona Ana, bent a hard eye on his subordinate.

“It’s got to be done,” he urged.  “To elect our ticket we must have all the respectable and responsible people of the valley.  If we can provoke Foy into an outbreak——­”

“Not we—­you,” corrected Anastacio.  “Myself, I do not feel provoking.”

“Are you going to lay down on me?”

“If you care to put it that way—­yes.  Kit Foy is just the man to leave alone.”

“Now, listen!” said the sheriff impatiently.  “Half the valley is owned by newcomers, men of substance, who, with the votes they influence or control, will decide the election.  Foy is half a hero with them, because of these vague old stories.  But let him be stirred up to violence now and you’ll see!  They won’t see any romance in it—­just an open outrage; they will flock to us to the last man.  Ours is the party of law and order—­”

“Law to order, some say.”

The veins swelled in the sheriff’s heavy face and thick neck; he regarded his deputy darkly.

“That comes well from you, Barela!  Don’t you see, with the law on our side all these men of substance will be with us unconditionally?  I tell you, Christopher Foy is the brains of his party.  Once he is discredited—­”

“And I tell you that I am the brains of your party and I’ll have nothing to do with your fine plan.  ’Tis an old stratagem to call oppression, law, and resistance to oppression, lawlessness.  You tried just that in ninety-six, didn’t you?  And I never could hear that our side had any the best of it or that the good name of Dona Ana was in any way bettered by our wars.  Come, Mr. Lisner—­the Kingdom of Lady Ann has been quiet now for nearly eight years.  Let us leave it so.  For myself, the last row brought me reputation and place, made me chief deputy under two sheriffs—­so I need have the less hesitation in setting forth my passionate preference for peace.”

“You have as much to gain as I have,” growled the sheriff.  “Besides your own cinch, you have one of your gente for deputy in every precinct in the county.”

“Exactly!  And if we have wars again, who but the Barelas would bear the brunt?  No, no, Mr. Matt Lisner; while I may be a merely ornamental chief deputy, it will never be denied that I am a very careful chief to my gente.  Be sure that I shall think more than once or twice before I set a man of my men at a useless hazard to pleasure you—­or to reelect you.”

“You speak plainly.”

“I intend to.  I speak for three hundred—­and we vote solid.  Make no mistake, Mr. Lisner.  You need me in your business, but I can do nicely without you.”

“Perhaps you’d like to be sheriff yourself.”

“I might like it—­except that I am not as young and foolish as I was,” said Anastacio, smiling.  “Now that I am so old, and so wise and all, it is clear to see that neither myself nor any of the fighting men of the mad old days—­on either side—­should be sheriff.”