“Well, I’m back,” the dismounted horseman said surlily.

“I see you are.”

“Got out of the hospital Thursday.”

“Hope you’ve made up yore mind to behave, Dan.”

“It doesn’t hurt a man to take a drink onc’t in a while.”

“Depends on the man.  It put you in the hospital.”

Meldrum ripped out a sudden oath.  “Wait.  Just wait till I get that pink-ear.  I’ll drill him full of holes right.”

“By God, you’ll not!” Rutherford’s voice was like the snap of a whip.  “Try it.  Try it.  I’ll hunt you down like a wolf and riddle yore carcass.”

In amazement the ex-convict stared at him.  “What’s ailin’ you, Rutherford?”

“I’m through with you and Tighe.  You’ll stop making trouble or you’ll get out of here.  I’m going to clean up the park—­going to make it a place where decent folks can live.  You’ve got yore warning now, Dan.  Walk a straight chalk-line or hit the trail.”

“You can’t talk that way to me, Rutherford.  I know too much,” threatened Meldrum, baring his teeth.

“Don’t think it for a minute, Dan.  Who is going to take yore word against mine?  I’ve got the goods on you.  I can put you through for rustling any time I have a mind to move.  And if you don’t let young Beaudry alone, I’ll do it.”

“Am I the only man that ever rustled?  Ain’t there others in the park?  I reckon you’ve done some night-riding yore own self.”

“Some,” drawled Rutherford, with a grim little smile.  “By and large, I’ve raised a considerable crop of hell.  But I’m reforming in my old age.  New Mexico has had a change of heart.  Guns are going out, Meldrum, and little red schoolhouses are coming in.  We’ve got to keep up with the fashions.”

“Hmp!  Schoolhouses!  I know what’s ailin’ you.  Since Anse Rutherford’s girl—­”

“You’re off the reservation, Dan,” warned the rancher, and again his low voice had the sting of cactus thorns in it.

Meldrum dropped that subject promptly.  “Is Buck going to join this Sunday-School of yours?” he jeered.  “And all the boys?”

“That’s the programme.  Won’t you come in, too?”

“And Jess Tighe.  He’ll likely be one of the teachers.”

“You’d better ask him.  He hasn’t notified me.”

“Hell!  You and yore kin have given the name to deviltry in this country.  Mothers scare their kids by telling them the Rutherfords will git them.”

“Fact.  But that’s played out.  My boys are grown up and are at the turn of the trail.  It hit me plumb in the face when you fools pulled off that express robbery.  It’s a piece of big luck you’re not all headed for the penitentiary.  I know when I’ve had enough.  So now I quit.”

“All right.  Quit.  But we haven’t all got to go to the mourner’s bench with you, have we?  You can travel yore trail and we can go ours, can’t we?”

“Not when we’re on the same range, Dan.  What I say goes.”  The eyes of Rutherford bored into the cruel little shifty ones of the bad man.  “Take yore choice, Dan.  It’s quit yore deviltry or leave this part of the country.”