“I hate that country up there.  I’ve got no use for it.  It killed my mother just as surely as it did my father.  I left there when I was a child, but I’ll never forget that dreadful day seventeen years ago.  Sometimes I wake in bed out of some devil’s nightmare and live it over.  Why should I go back to that bloody battleground?  Hasn’t it cost me enough already?  It’s easy for you to come and tell me to go to Huerfano Park—­”

“Hold your horses, Mr. Beaudry.  I’m not tellin’ you to go.  I’ve laid the facts before ye.  Go or stay as you please.”

“That’s all very well,” snapped back the young man.  “But I know what you’ll think of me if I don’t go.”

“What you’ll think of yourself matters more.  I haven’t got to live with ye for forty years.”

Roy Beaudry writhed.  He was sensitive and high-strung.  Temperamentally he coveted the good opinion of those about him.  Moreover, he wanted to deserve it.  No man had ever spoken to him in just the tone of this little Irish cowpuncher, who had come out of nowhere into his life and brought to him his first big problem for decision.  Even though the man had confessed himself a rustler, the young lawyer could not escape his judgment.  Pat Ryan might have ridden on many lawless trails in his youth, but the dynamic spark of self-respect still burned in his soul.  He was a man, every inch of his five-foot three.

“I want to live at peace,” the boy went on hotly.  “Huerfano Park is still in the dark ages.  I’m no gunman.  I stand for law and order.  This is the day of civilization.  Why should I embroil myself with a lot of murderous outlaws when what I want is to sit here and make friends—?”

The Irishman hammered his fist on the table and exploded.  “Then sit here, damn ye!  But why the hell should any one want to make friends with a white-livered pup like you?  I thought you was Jack Beaudry’s son, but I’ll niver believe it.  Jack didn’t sit on a padded chair and talk about law and order.  By God, no!  He went out with a six-gun and made them.  No gamer, whiter man ever strapped a forty-four to his hip. He niver talked about what it would cost him to go through for his friends.  He just went the limit without any guff.”

Ryan jingled out of the room in hot scorn and left one young peace advocate in a turmoil of emotion.

Young Beaudry did not need to discuss with himself the ethics of the situation.  A clear call had come to him on behalf of the man who had been his best friend, even though he had never met him.  He must answer that call, or he must turn his back on it.  Sophistry would not help at all.  There were no excuses his own mind would accept.