When Jacob Teale had been gone for two months, Evie bad her first doubts.  Travel was hard, and he might have had to go further to find cattle he could buy, but he would surely have sent word.  He would have written.

Jacob had never been a heedless man.  He was not thoughtful about her needs, but he was a practical man who did whatever needed to be done.  Somehow, had he been able, he would surely have sent word.

The supplies brought by the stage company had lasted well, and Evie had ordered again.  She had even managed to save two dollars which she carfully put away.

It was Laban who worried her. He was working too hard, caring for the horses, getting them out to meet the stages, picketing them on grass to make the little hay they had last, and cutting wood for the house. She had tried to help, but he resented it, wanting to carry on by himself. She saw no more of Kiowa Staples. Charlie Mos Cloud had given her a brief account of what had hap-pened. "Never saw anything like it," he said. "Staples came a-hunting trouble and Conagher gave it to hirai It was as bad a whipping as a man ever got. Have you ever seen what a club forty-five feet of rope will make when it's in a tight coil?  I can tell you one thing.  Staples may take a shot at Conagher from ambush sometime, but he sure won't face him again.

"Kiowa never expected anything like that.  He expected Conn to try to draw against him, but that swinging coil of rope just knocked him groggy.  He'd been hit four or five times before he even had a chance to do anything, and Conagher never let him get set.  I figure that's one would-be gunman who is cured."

It was hard to believe it of the quiet, rather gentle man she recalled.  When she said as much, McCloud shrugged. "Mrs. Teale, I figure this Conagher's got a lot behind him.  He ain't come to this of a sudden.  He's a man who's had years of it to put the steel in him.  He's seen a-plenty and he just ain't about to be bothered by any tinhorn who comes along the pike."

And then he repeated what someone else had said.  "He's the kind you just don't push, Mrs. Teale.  Reminds me of Billy Brooks over to Dodge.  Billy was a gun-using marshal and a good one.  In his first two or three months on the job he shot thirteen men... I don't mean he killed them all, but he was engaged in gunplay with them.  Then he crossed horns with a tough old buffalo hunter named Kirk Jordan, and Kirk made Billy take water.  He run Billy clean out of town.

"Any gunman who wants to build himself a reputation had best steer clear of men like Kirk Jordan or Conn Conagher, and a few others I could name.  They just don't put up with foolishness."