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Dodge and take for good beef considerable less than it had cost to raise. A lot of herds had been ahead of him while he’d sat here fidgeting in the hope of additional rain. There was still grass on these flats but —
    A faint scratch of sound pulled Frank’s head up. This quick he was cocked to send a hand streaking beltward but he kept the hand still and held the rest of him likewise. Too close to the desk and too late for it anyway. Tularosa’s saddlemate — that old jasper he’d disarmed at the blacksmith’s — stood just inside the open door.
    The old coot had the look of a hungry wolf. He held a gun at his hip and the slanch of his eyes said he’d just as lief use it. “Git him out.”
    “Keys are in my back pocket,” Frank said, looking disgusted.
    “Son, I ain’t aimin’ to tell you twice.”
    Frank, shrugging, got up. He found it harder than he’d reckoned to turn his back on this ranny but Frank wanted it understood he wasn’t about to go off the foolish end of this. With two fingers he fished the ring of keys from his pocket. “Now shuck the gun,” Draicup’s rider said.
    Frank got up and let it fall out of his pants. The sound of its drop held a world of finality.
    The old man said, “Git him outa there now.”
    A pile of thoughts churned through Frank’s head and were discarded. He tramped down the echoing corridor with the old trail hand keeping plenty of space between them. No chance to whirl and grab. Too much promise of stopping a bullet.
    “That you, Dogie?” Tularosa growled.
    The old vinegarroon grunted. “Git that cage open, boy.”
    It was in Frank’s mind that he might still manage to block this. All he needed to do was pitch these keys into one of the cells, into one of those shut and empty ones. Before this sidewinder got things in hand again Chavez ought to be coming into the place with Settles.
    But Frank hadn’t enough faith in the plan to go through with it. Chavez would walk into this blind and probably get himself shot. And they might drill Frank for spite. Tularosa took hold of the bars. He was grinning.
    Three feet short of Tularosa Frank turned. “You — ”
    “Git that door open quick!”
    The old geezer was in one hell of a sweat. It was even money he had watched Chavez leave.
“Don’t shoot,”
Frank yelled —
“bend that gun over his head!”
    It was the oldest trick in the deck, but it impelled the man to make a choice at a time he couldn’t afford to get tangled up in thinking. Frank flung the keys, saw them whack Dogie full in the kisser. The old fool fired but he was still off balance and before he could trigger again Frank tied into him, smashing him wickedly against iron bars.
    Frank grabbed the man’s gun wrist, savagely twisting, forcing the muzzle of the weapon away from him. Dogie fought like a wildcat with a panting ferocity that carried Frank back and came within a twist of breaking Frank’s hold. The fist that was free slammed into Frank like a jackhammer. A bony knee slashed at Frank’s groin. The old man’s head nearly tore off Frank’s jaw.
    He tried again for Frank’s groin and this time found it. Frank’s whole body felt that knee going through him. He was lost in red fog. But Dogie, swinging the gun at Frank’s head, didn’t have as much room as he thought he had. The pistol’s long barrel clanged against a cell bar, the blow grazed Frank’s neck and Frank, staggering into him, bore the old man off his feet. So much violence seemed to have used the man up. Frank, half smothering him, found Dogie’s wrist again, cracking it against the floor until the gun fell out of his fingers.
    Frank, rolling clear of him, heard the wild grumble of Tularosa’s cursing. Frank pushed onto his feet but that damned old ranny wouldn’t own to being whipped. With the breath rattling around in him like a windbroken bronc he was after the gun again, talon-spread hand almost onto it when Frank, snarling with outrage, stamped a boot on it,