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the rotten molar emerged, along with a barely stifled grunt of pain from its stoic former owner.
    Tossing the tooth into a nearby metal pail, the dentist paused long enough to glance streetward. He did not expect to see anything of unusual note. This was Lahood, after all. So he was doubly surprised to see the buckboard as it rolled past his establishment.
    “I’ll be damned,” he muttered, moving toward the window for a better look.
    His pain momentarily forgotten, the patient sat up in his chair and let his eyes follow the dentist’s gaze. “What, what is it?”
    “Barret.”
    Holding his aching jaw with one hand, the miner pushed aside the sheet that had been used to cover him and joined the dentist in gaping out the window.
    “Danged if it ain’t,” he breathed in amazement.
    In the newly built United States Post Office the tight-lipped postmistress was taking letters from a sheaf held firmly in one hand and placing them in their respective pigeonholes on the wall oposite. A chance look in the direction of the multipaned windows revealed the buckboard wending its way down the main street. She paused, one letter halfway to its destination, to stare at the driver.
    So did the undertaker, who left off painting a newly fashioned pine casket to observe the passing wagon in silence. When he resumed his work he was whistling softly. California in the midfifties was full of business for a man in his profession. He’d done right well there in little Lahood, though some of the business that was brought his way required the utmost skill and patience his art could muster. Very few of his clients died a natural death. Some of them had met their demise in noisy and spectacular fashion. It wasn’t always an easy task to make them presentable for the last time. A post-Gold Rush mortician tended to earn his money.
    Unaware that he was the object of so much attention, Hull Barret guided the buckboard down the right side of the street, where the mud was shallower. His head never wavered, but his eyes were in constant motion, darting from right to left and back again. He examined each building in turn as he passed it, paying particular attention to each door and half-opened window.
    It was with considerable relief that he reined in the mare and tied her up to the hitching rail outside his destination. It was an imposing structure. A large sign both identified it and proclaimed ownership.

    BLANKENSHIP MERCANTILE

    A lone gelding was the only other animal tied up outside, a fact that Hull noted with additional relief. As he worked at securing the reins he couldn’t keep his gaze from straying to the building directly across the street. It was even more impressive than Blankenship’s emporium. The two-story office and warehouse was surmounted by a massive sign of its own, the letters bold and challenging.

    C. K. LAHOOD & SON
    Mining and Smelting

    There were chairs on the porch that faced the street. Three of them were presently occupied by a trio of Lahood’s roustabouts. One of them recognized Hull and gestured. The three exchanged whispers and even across the street Hull could make out their faint, unpleasant laughter. He doubted they were talking politics.
    Nothing much to be done about it now. He was committed, and they’d seen him. What was he worrying about, anyway? He had as much right to come into town as anyone else, including Lahood’s flunkies.
    Sure he did.
    He added a protective clove hitch to the reins, the men’s distant sniggering loud in his ears. Ignoring it as best he could, he climbed the steps leading to the store. He was inordinately glad once he was inside. Not that that would make any difference if anything happened, but if felt good to have their eyes off him.
    Jed Blankenship watched him enter. The owner of the general store was seated on a stool behind the hardware counter. He looked his sixty years, and wore shirtsleeve garters and an accountant’s visor as well as the attitude of a man who at