The Hair-Trigger Kid by Max Brand

When Milman left his ranch house on the dead gallop, the horse straining and struggling forward under the spur, there was very little care in his heart except to finish the miserable business of life at once. But when he came in the darkness to the rim of the hills which overlooked Hurry Creek, he had a sudden change of heart.

Here was his father's work and his own, represented by those milling thousands of cattle. The stinging dust which rose unseen from the hollow to his nostrils was to him as bitter as poison, and as he stared at this dim picture beneath him, and the red streak of the camp fire across the face of the river, there was another fierce desire in him, coming before that of death.