"That's whatever. Y'betcha. We don't want no gay cowboys shootin' out our lights. No reflections, y'understand."
The latest arrival handed over his revolver, and the man behind the bar hung the scabbard on a nail. Half a dozen others were on a shelf beside it. For the custom on the frontier was that each rider from the range should deposit his weapons at the first saloon he entered. They were returned to him when he called for them just before leaving town. This tended to lessen the number of sudden deaths.
"Who you ridin' for, young fellow?" asked the sallow man of Roberts.
"For the A T O."
The dark young man turned and looked at the cowboy.
"So? How long have you been riding for Wadley?"
"Nine months."
"Don't think I've seen you before."
"I'm a line-rider--don't often get to the ranch-house."
"What ground do you cover?"
"From Dry Creek to the rim-rock, and south past Box Cañon."
Three pair of eyes were focused watchfully on Roberts. The sallow man squirted tobacco at a knot in the floor and rubbed his bristly chin with the palm of a hand.
"Kinda lonesome out there, ain't it?" he ventured.
"That's as how you take it. The country is filled with absentees," admitted Roberts.
"Reckoned it was. Never been up that way myself. A sort of a bad-lands proposition, I've heard tell--country creased with arroyos, packed with rocks an' rattlesnakes mostly."
The heavy-set man broke in harshly. "Anybody else run cattle there except old man Wadley?"
"Settlers are comin' in on the other side of the rim-rock. Cattle drift across. I can count half a dozen brands 'most any day."
"But you never see strangers."
"Don't I?"
"I'm askin', do you?" The voice of the older man was heavy and dominant. It occurred to Roberts that he had heard that voice before.
"Oh!" Unholy imps of mirth lurked in the alert eyes of the line-rider. "Once in a while I do--last Thursday, for instance."
The graceful, dark young man straightened as does a private called to attention. "A trapper, maybe?" he said.
The cowboy brought his level gaze back from a barefoot negro washing the floor. "Not this time. He was a rustler."
"How do you know?" The high voice of the questioner betrayed excitement.
"I caught him brandin' a calf. He waved me round. I beat him to the Box Cañon and saw him ridin' through."
"You saw him ridin' through? Where were you?" The startled eyes of the dark young man were fixed on him imperiously.
"From the bluff above."
"You don't say!" The voice of the heavy man cut in with jeering irony. The gleam of his jade eyes came through narrow-slitted lids. "Well, did you take him back to the ranch for a necktie party, or did you bury him in the gulch?"