CHAPTER XXV
A MAN OF DOUBTS
IN Hal Dozier there was a belief that the end justified the means. When Hank Rainer sent word to Tomo that the outlaw was in his cabin, and, if the posse would gather, he, Hank, would come out of his cabin that night and let the posse rush the sleeping man who remained, Hal Dozier was willing and eager to take advantage of the opportunity. A man of action by nature and inclination, Dozier had built a great repute as a hunter of criminals, and he had been known to take single-handed chances against the most desperate; but when it was possible Hal Dozier played a safe game.
He understood the Napoleonic maxim that the side which puts the greatest number of units at the point of contact will be practically sure to win, and, when he could use two men to do the work of one man, Hal did it. And if he could get twenty, so much the better. In a crisis he was willing and able to do his work alone, but, by the time he had accumulated half a dozen scars representing half a dozen battles in his early life, he reached the conclusion that sooner or later one of his enemies was bound to kill him. The law of chance of itself condemned him. And though the people of the mountain desert considered him invincible, because he had run down some dozen notorious fighters, Hal himself felt that this simply increased the chances that the thirteenth man, by luck or by cunning, would strike him down.
Therefore he played safe always. On this occasion
