Free Novel 1966 - Kilrone (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour

constitute a threat to the whole frontier. The man who averted that threat would find himself in an enviable position, and one hard to defeat in any election. And it was this toward which Iron Dave Sproul had been working for more than ten years.
    Many things could be said about him, but nothing could be proved, for Sproul was not the owner of record of any of the gambling houses or honky-tonks with which he had been associated. He made a practice of coming around, of being seen, and of talking to people here and there. It was assumed he was the owner, and so he was; but in each case he had a straw man between himself and the records.
    In the future he would blandly deny any connection with such places. Yes, he had been around them, but they were the customary meeting places on the frontier, and much business was done in saloons and gambling houses. Men met there to buy or sell cattle, to complete mining deals, to arrange for freighting contracts.
    Medicine Dog was the key to the outbreak, and it was Sproul who had built him into prominence. When the news was released that Webb had been killed and his troop massacred, then that Medicine Dog had attacked and burned the post, taking over five hundred stands of arms—it was an exaggeration but it sounded well—the frontier would be in a panic.
    At that moment, Dave Sproul would step in, meet with the Indians, end the outbreak, and become the man of the hour. From there he might become governor or go to the Senate…and Dave Sproul knew how politics could be used by a man with no scruples, no moral principles, and only a driving greed and ambition.

 
     
    Chapter 8
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    T HE HOURS PRECEDING an attack are slow hours. The minutes pace themselves slowly, and those who wait find a savor in life, for they begin to taste, to feel, to hear as at no other time. They realize these hours may be their last, and their senses are sharpened and more alert, and things formerly ignored are now appreciated, or at least realized, as never before.
    Night came gently to the post. The rain continued quietly. There was no thunder, no lightning, no heightening of drama in so far as nature was concerned.
    In the three buildings at the end of the parade ground the people bedded down like refugees, making themselves comfortable, half in fear and half in a sort of thrill at the strangeness of it. To the few youngsters, the atmosphere was almost that of a picnic. It was camping out…some of them had not even seen the inside of Headquarters before.
    Guards were posted outside, none of them further than sixty feet from the buildings. Of one thing they were sure. The Indians would not come with a rush, exposing themselves as targets. They would come quietly, moving like shadows in the earliest hours before the dawn, or perhaps even at night. They would be close and all around them before anyone realized it. The men on guard post knew they would have little time in which to get back inside; the last guard of the night would be mounted from within the buildings.
    Kilrone had too few men for any offensive action. He could afford no losses. His would be a holding action, an attempt to delay until the patrols could return. The tactical advantages of defense were denied him, for he had no covering forces to use in delaying the enemy, to disorganize their advance, or deceive them as to the true location of the defense.
    His greatest advantage lay in his excellent field of fire to the north and south, and in the covering fire the three buildings could offer for each other. The greatest disadvantage lay in the limited field of fire to east and west.
    The women, rising as always to an emergency, when more often than not they function at their best, bustled about and were busy.
    He was not worried about the women; he knew that in those around him he was especially fortunate. These were soldiers’ wives or relatives, bred to a realization of frontier life and the possibility of frontier warfare. Not one of them