ramshackle establishment stood down at the end of the
village street. There was not a sawed board in all that structure, and
some of the pine logs showed how they had been dropped from the bluff.
Brackton, a little old gray man, with scant beard, and eyes like those
of a bird, came briskly out to meet an incoming freighter. The wagon
was minus a hind wheel, but the teamster had come in on three wheels
and a pole. The sweaty, dust-caked, weary, thin-ribbed mustangs, and
the gray-and-red-stained wagon, and the huge jumble of dusty packs,
showed something of what the journey had been.

"Hi thar, Red Wilson, you air some late gettin' in," greeted old
Brackton.

Red Wilson had red eyes from fighting the flying sand, and red dust
pasted in his scraggy beard, and as he gave his belt an upward hitch
little red clouds flew from his gun-sheath.

"Yep. An' I left a wheel an' part of the load on the trail," he said.

With him were Indians who began to unhitch the teams. Riders lounging
in the shade greeted Wilson and inquired for news. The teamster replied
that travel was dry, the water-holes were dry, and he was dry. And his
reply gave both concern and amusement.

"One more trip out an' back--thet's all, till it rains," concluded
Wilson.

Brackton led him inside, evidently to alleviate part of that dryness.

Water and grass, next to horses, were the stock subject of all riders.

"It's got oncommon hot early," said one.

"Yes, an' them northeast winds--hard this spring," said another.

"No snow on the uplands."

"Holley seen a dry spell comin'. Wal, we can drift along without
freighters. There's grass an' water enough here, even if it doesn't
rain."

"Sure, but there ain't none across the river."

"Never was, in early season. An' if there was it'd be sheeped off."

"Creech'll be fetchin' his hosses across soon, I reckon."

"You bet he will. He's trainin' for the races next month."

"An' when air they comin' off?"

"You got me. Mebbe Van knows."

Some one prodded a sleepy rider who lay all his splendid lithe length,
hat over his eyes. Then he sat up and blinked, a lean-faced, gray-eyed
fellow, half good-natured and half resentful.

"Did somebody punch me?"

"Naw, you got nightmare! Say, Van, when will the races come off?"

"Huh! An' you woke me for thet? ... Bostil says in a few weeks, soon as
he hears from the Indians. Plans to have eight hundred Indians here,
an' the biggest purses an' best races ever had