The Boone spread, or Triple B, known by the BB&B brand, was the ranch north of the SD&P. Old Man Boone had long been suspected of not only being one of the busiest rustlers around, but of selling his rustled beef and stolen horses to the Comanche, Comancheros, and the Mexican government. His two adult sons, Wade and Wesley, were notorious troublemakers. When not out thieving cattle or horses, they spent their time in gambling halls, saloons, and whorehouses. That Wade was suspected of bank robbery and murder didn’t surprise Pritchard or Paul in the least.

“Iffen you don’t mind,” Pritchard said, “we’d be obliged if you’d allow us to deposit this rustler in your jail, so we can get on about our business.”

“Nobody’s goin’ into that jail,” one of the men at the front of the crowd said. Pritchard recognized him as the foreman at Boone’s Triple B Ranch, and the men surrounding him as cowhands employed there. “As a matter of fact, somebody’s coming out. Turn Wade loose, Marshal Logan.”

“Ain’t gonna,” the marshal said.

“Then we’ll march in and get him,” the ranch foreman said. “And don’t think no withered old town marshal, nor one lonely, stinkin’ Ranger is gonna stop us, neither.”

“Well, come on, then,” Marshal Logan said, leveling the shotgun at the spokesman. “See what’s a-waitin’ for you.”

The onlookers and townsfolk who’d been watching the unfolding drama began to move back. Within seconds, there were only the two lawmen standing in front of the jail, with a dozen fuming cowboys facing them, each one primed to draw. Everybody else had moved to a position of cover behind a barrel, trough, or post to observe the drama from relative safety.

Pritchard dismounted, gesturing for Paul to keep their prisoner covered with his carbine from horseback. He slowly walked through the throng of cowboys, a full head taller than any of them, until he turned to stand shoulder to shoulder with Marshal Logan and the Ranger in front of the jail.

“What do you think you’re doing, Atherton?” the foreman said. “Are you taking sides with them lawmen?”

“Might as well,” Pritchard said. “I already killed three of you thievin’ Triple B hands today, and it’s still early.”

“You son of a bitch,” the foreman said. He and the two men on either side of him went for their guns.

In the blink of an eye, Pritchard drew and fired three times. He felled the trio of gunmen with three headshots. Marshal Logan started to pull the shotgun’s trigger, and the Ranger had drawn both his revolvers, but both checked their trigger fingers after witnessing Pritchard’s display of blazingly fast, and deadly accurate, gunmanship.

“Anybody else?” Pritchard asked what was left of the pack. Nobody answered him, nor dared move. His smoking guns, and the look in his eye, froze them in place.