Ten thousand
dollars reward for the man described below, dead or alive. Ten thousand
dollars which might be earned by the investment of a single bullet and the
pressure on trigger; and above this the fame which such a deed would
bring--no wonder that the mountain-desert hummed through all its peaks and
plains, and stirred to life. Moreover, the news had gone abroad, the tale
of the Killing of Alder and everything that went before. It went West; it
appeared in newspapers; it cropped up at firesides; it gave a spark of
terror to a myriad conversations; and every one in Rickett felt that the
eye of the nation was upon it; every one in Rickett dreamed nightly of the
man described: "Daniel Barry, called Whistling Dan, about five feet nine or
ten, slender, black hair, brown eyes, age about thirty years."
Secretly, Rickett felt perfectly convinced that Sheriff Pete Glass alone
could handle this fellow and trim his claws for they knew how many a "bad
man" had built a reputation high as Babel and baffled posses and murdered
right and left, until the little dusty man on the little dusty roan went
out alone and came back alone, and another fierce name went from history
into legend.
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