The low, angry buzz of Harlan’s friends and their savage, scowling faces would have deterred a less determined man; but Edwards knew they were afraid of him, and the men on whom he could call to back him up.  And he knew that there must always be a start, there must be one man to show the way; and each of the men he faced was waiting for some one else to lead.

“You all slip over the horizon before dark to-night, an’ it’s dark early these days,” he continued. “Don’t get restless with yore hands!” he snapped ominously at the crowd.  “I means what I say—­you shake the mud from this town off yore boots before dark—­before that Bar-20 outfit gets back,” he finished meaningly.

Questions, imprecations, and threats filled the room, and the crowd began to spread out slowly.  His guns came out like a flash and he laughed with the elation that comes with impending battle.  “The first man to start it’ll drop,” he said evenly.  “Who’s going to be the martyr?”

“I won’t leave town!” shouted Harlan.  “I’ll stay here if I’m killed for it!”

“I admire yore loyalty to principle, but you’ve got damned little sense,” retorted the marshal.  “You ain’t no practical man. Keep yore hands where they are!”—­his vibrant voice turned the shifting crowd to stone-like rigidity and he backed slowly toward the door, the poor light gleaming dully from the polished blue steel of his Colts.  Rugged, lion-like, charged to the finger tips with reckless courage and dare-devil self-confidence, his personality overflowed and dominated the room, almost hypnotic in its effect.  He was but one against many, but he was the master, and they knew it; they had known it long enough to accept it without question, and the training now stood him in good stead.

For a moment he stood in the open doorway, keenly scrutinizing them for signs of danger, his unwavering guns charged with certain death and his strong face made stronger by the shadows in its hollows.  “Before dark!”—­and he was gone.

He left behind him deep silence, which endured for several moments.

“By the Lord, I won’t!” cried Harlan, still staring at the door.

The spell was broken and a babel of voices filled the room, threats mingling with excuses, hot, vibrant, profane.  These men were not cowards all the way through, but only when face to face with the master.  They had flourished in a way by their wits alone on the same range with the outfits of the C-80 and the Double-Arrow, for individually they were “bad,” and collectively they made a force of no mean strength.  Edwards had landed among them like a thunderbolt and had proved his prowess, and they still held him in awesome respect.  His reckless audacity and grim singleness of purpose had saved him on more than one occasion, for had he wavered once he would have been shot down without mercy.  But gradually his enforcement of hampering laws became more and more intolerable, and their subordinated spirits were nearly on the point of revolt.  When he faced them they resumed their former positions in relation to him—­but once out of his sight they plotted to destroy him.  Here was the crisis:  it was now or never.  They could not evade his ultimatum—­it was obey or fight.