o him had come a
later period, not comparable in any sense, yet rough, free, untamed and
still bloody. He knew how to play his cards against such men as these.
The more boldly he faced them, the more menacingly he went out of his
way to meet them, the greater would be his advantage. If Matthews were
another Hickok the situation would have been vastly different. If
there were any real fighting men on Hardman's side Pan would recognize
them in a single glance. He was an unknown quantity to them, that most
irritating of newcomers to a wild place, the man with a name preceding
him.

Pan came abreast of the building that he was seeking. It was part
stone and part adobe, heavily and crudely built, with no windows on the
side facing him. Approaching it, and turning the corner, he saw a
wide-arched door leading into a small stone-floored room. He heard
voices. In a couple of long strides Pan crossed the flat threshold.
Two men were playing cards with a greasy deck, a bottle of liquor and
small glasses on the table between them. The one whose back was turned
to Pan did not see him, but the other man jerked up from his bench,
then sagged back with strangely altering expression. He was young,
dark, coarse, and he had a bullet hole in his chin.

Pan's recognition did not lag behind the other's. This was Handy Mac
New, late of Montana, a cowboy who had drifted beyond the pale. He was
one of that innumerable band whom Pan had helped in some way or other.
Handy had become a horse thief and a suspected murderer in the year
following Pan's acquaintance with him.

"Howdy, men," Pan greeted them, giving no sign that he had recognized
Mac New. "Which one of you is on guard here?"

"Me," replied Mac New, choking over the word. Slowly he got to his
feet.

"You've got a prisoner in there named Blake," went on Pan. "I once
lived near him. He used to play horse with me and ride me on his back.
Will you let me talk to him?"

"Why, shore, stranger," replied Mac New, with nervous haste, and
producing a key, he inserted it in the lock of a heavy whitewashed door.

Pan found himself ushered into a large room with small iron-barred
windows on the west side. His experience of frontier jails had been
limited, but those he had seen had been bare, empty, squalid cells.
This, however, was evidently a luxurious kind of a prison house. There
were Indian blankets and rugs on the floor, an open fireplace with
cheerful blaze, a table