This one thing was certain: the next time Pete Glass ran for office he
would be beaten even by a greaser. He made enemies at the rate of a hundred
a day during that period of selection.
Still the twenty was not recruited to the full. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen
were gathered into the fold, but still five men were lacking to complete
the toll. Most men would have started their man-hunt with that formidable
force, but Pete Glass was methodical. In his own heart of hearts he would
have given his hope of heaven to meet Barry face to face and hand to hand,
and see which was the better man, but Pete Glass owed a duty to his state
before he owed a duty to himself. He stuck by his first plan. And every day
the inhabitants of Rickett gathered at the shooting gallery to watch the
tests and wonder at the successes and smile at the failures.
It was a very hard test which the sheriff had imposed. A man stood to one
side of the iron-plate back wall which served as the target. He stood
entirely out of sight and through an aperture in the side wall, at a
signal, he tossed a round ball of clay, painted white.
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