Norton went out after him, shifted saddle from jaded beast to fresh
again and again, rode two hundred miles with only the short stops for
hastily taken food and water and got his man willy-nilly a mile below
the border. What was more, he made it his personal business that the
man was convicted and sentenced to a long term; about San Juan there
was no crime less tolerable than that of "shooting wild."
But all this brought him no closer to Jim Galloway; Galloway, meeting
him shortly afterward in San Juan, laughed and thanked him for the job.
It appeared that the man whom Norton had brought back to stand trial
was not only no friend of the proprietor of the Casa Blanca, but an
out-spoken enemy.
"You'll be asking favors of me next, Norton," grinned the big,
thick-bodied man. "I'd pay you real money for getting a few like him
out of my way. Get me, don't you?" and he passed on, his eyes turned
tauntingly.
Yes, Norton "got" him. No man in the southwest harbored more bitter
ill-will for the lawless than Jim Galloway . . . unless the lawless
stood in with him. Aforetime many a hardy, tempestuous spirit had
defied the crime-dictator; here of late they were few who hoped to slit
throats or cut purses and not pay allegiance to the saloon-keeper of
San Juan.
Upon the heels of this affair, however, came another which was destined
to bring Roderick Norton to a crisis in his life.
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