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“That might’n be so bad.”

“You try it, boy. A week and you’d go back to driving or shotgun riding just to get away.” They mounted their horses and Mauren said, “You’ve wasted enough time. Now do something for your pay.”

“I’ll try and come back this way,” Brady said.

“Do that now,” Mauren answered. He reined tightly and moved off through the pinyon pine.

FOR A MOMENT Brady watched him, then slipped the glasses into a saddlebag, tight-turned his own mount and slanted down the slope to the road below. He reached the end of the ravine and followed the double wagon ruts into the trees, feeling the relief of the shade now and he pushed his hat up from his forehead, thinking then: Maybe I should’ve got a new one. The tan Stetson was dusty and dark-stained around the band, but it felt good.

The fact was, everything felt good. It was good to be here and good to see the things there were to see and good to be going where he was going.

He thought of Mr. Glennan whom he had never seen before—Mr.J. F. Glennan—and tried to picture him.

“Mr. Glennan, my name’s Brady, with Hatch and Hodges, come with the franchise agreement for you to sign.” No—

“Hello Mr. Glennan, my name’s Brady, with Hatch and Hodges—you sure got a nice place. Fine for a stage stop, trees for shade and not much building on to do. Here’s the agreement, Mr. Glennan. I think you’ll like working for”—no—“being with the company. Take me. I been with Hatch and Hodges for eight years; since I was a sixteen-year-old boy.”

Then what?

“Yes, sir. I like it very much. See, my father is general manager up to Prescott. He said, ‘Steve, if you’re going to work for me you’re going to start at the bottom and pull your ownself up.’ Which is what I did— starting as a stable boy in the Prescott yard.”

He thought: He’s not interested in that.

But thought then: You got to talk, don’t you? You have to be friendly.

“Then I went out, Mr. G1ennan. Went to work for Mr. Rindo who’s agent up on the Gila Ford to San Carlos run. Then my Uncle Joe Mauren, who isn’t my uncle but that’s what I call him, made me his shotgun messenger. Uncle Joe drove then. Now he’s in charge of all construction. But when I was with him he taught me everything there is to know—how to drive, how to read sign, how to shoot…. But you methim! Mr. Mauren? The one first talked to you a couple weeks ago?”

See, he thought. You talk enough and it comes right back to where you started.

“So then I drove a stage for four years and then, just last week, was named a supervisor for the Bisbee to Contention section and for this new line that goes up to Rock of Ages. And that’s why I’m the one calling on you with the franchise agreement.”

See? Right back again.

You talk all your life and you don’t worry about it, he thought. But when it’s your job to talk then you worry like it’s some new thing to learn. Like it’s harder than hitting something with a Colt gun or driving a three-team stage.

Chapter Two

Two with Guns

A QUARTER OF a mile ahead of Brady, two riders came down through the rocks and scrub brush to the mouth of the draw. They dismounted, leaving their horses in the trees, came out to the edge of the wagon ruts at the point where they entered the open meadow, and looked back up the draw.

The younger of the two, his hat low and straight over his eyes, and carrying a Henry rifle, said, “He’ll be along directly.” They moved back to the shadowed cover of the pine trees and stood there to wait.

“You don’t know who he is,” the second man said. “Why take a chance?”

“Where’s the chance?” the younger man said. “If he moves funny I’ll bust him.”

“Ed wouldn’t waste his time on one man.”

“The hell with Ed.”

“Ed looks for the big one.”

“You don’t know how big a thing is till you try it,” the younger man said. He paused, raising the Henry carefully, pointing the barrel out through the pine branches. “There he is, Russ, look at him.”

They watched Brady come out of the trees at the end of the draw and start across the meadow. For a moment the younger man studied him, his face relaxed