But Lauman was, perhaps, the quickest man with a gun in Valley County, else he would not have been serving his fourth term as sheriff.

He got the drop and kept it while his deputy did the rest.

It had been a hard chase, he said, and a long one if you counted time instead of miles.

But he had them now, harmless as rattlers with their fangs fresh drawn.

He wanted to get them to Glasgow before people got to hear of their capture; he thought they wouldn't be any too safe if the boys knew he had them.
If he had known that the Lazy Eight roundup had just pulled in to the home ranch that afternoon, and that Dick Farney, one of the Stevens men, had slipped out to the corral and saddled his swiftest horse, it is quite possible that Lauman would not have lingered so long over his supper, or drank his third cup of coffee--with real cream in it--with so great a relish.