A municipal feud

Joe Breedlove and his newly-found partner, Indigo Bowers, halted on the ridge to survey the country below and beyond them. The chariot of dawn thundered out of the east and every peak and bluff stood in clear outline, flaming with the careless interweaving of the raw primary colors; silver sparkled along the creek bottoms, scarlet and chrome ran side by side on the butte faces. Away in the remote distance a bright blue sky fused with the earth’s dun margin. It was like a bird’s-eye map splashed with pigment and Joe’s eyes kindled at the sight of so much prodigal beauty. “Providence rises, and the earth is filled with light,” he murmured, rolling a brown paper cigarette. “It just looks like another hot day to me,” grumbled Indigo Bowers. Indigo was a thin, undersized bundle of nerves. Upon his wizened face—where little wrinkling crow’s feet loved to dwell—was an abiding distrust of the world as he found it. His past life was a page written with the red ink of battle, feud and sudden violence, for Indigo was constitutionally unable to keep out of a quarrel, whether of his own making or somebody else’s. “Take the beam out o’ yore eye, Indigo,” said Joe, smiling. No man on earth could withstand that smile; it was the shrewd, tolerant smile of a man who very well knew how devious were the ways of a wicked world and yet would not let that knowledge sour him. Joe Breedlove was tall and lean and as bronzed as the cigarette papers which came attached to his sack of smokin’ tobacco. The hair showing beneath his Stetson was prematurely silvered, his eyes were quite blue and mirroring an easygoing philosophy of existence. “I ain’t got nothin’ in my eyes but sand an’ gravel,” retorted Indigo, “and I’ve swallered enough alkali water to corrode a boiler.” They were a strangely mated pair and the wonder of all wonders was that they managed to endure each other. Joe Breedlove had met Indigo a month back on the trail when Indigo was in one of his characteristic difficulties—being chased by a posse. Joe had helped him out of it and a little later had in turn been given an assisting hand by Indigo. After that some chemical affinity had drawn them together. And for a month they had ridden southward, bound nowhere in particular, with nothing much in…