he rest were saddling for the start Harris saw old Rile Foster seated
by himself, gazing off across the hills.

"Better come and ride over with us, Rile," he urged. "Bangs would want
you to try and forget."

The old man shook his head.

"I'm drifting to-day," he said. "I'll likely be back before long. I
back-tracked Blue to their camp and trailed them twenty miles to where
they joined another bunch. It was some of Harper's devils--I don't
know which four. One way or another, whether I get the right four or
not, I'm going to play even for Bangs."

When the rest of the men rode off the old man was still leaning against
the shop.

There were less than a dozen others in Brill's store when the Three Bar
men crowded through the door. Five men sat at one of the tables in the
big room and indulged in a casual game of stud. Harper and Lang were
among them. Two of them Harris knew as men named Hopkins and Wade.
The fifth was unknown to him.

The albino's eyes met Harris's steadily as he entered at the head of
the Three Bar men. Those among the hands who had formerly fraternized
as freely with Harper's men as with those who rode for legitimate
outfits now held way from them since their foreman had ordered Harper
from the Three Bar wagon. They merely nodded as they filed past to the
bar.

"Who is the man dealing now?" Harris inquired of Moore.

The freckled youth turned to the card players.

"Magill," he said. "Same breed as the rest."

The news that the Three Bar had turned into a squatter outfit had been
widely noised abroad. Carpenter had stopped at Brill's late the night
before and announced the fact. Others had seemed already aware of it.

From behind the bar Brill covertly studied the man who was responsible
for this change. Four men from the Halfmoon D stood grouped at one end
of the room. They split up and mingled among the others. Brill moved
up and down behind the bar, polishing it with a towel. One after
another he drew each of the men from the Halfmoon D into conversation
with the Three Bar foreman to determine whether or not they resented
his move. There was no evidence of it in their speech. They had all
been present when Harris rode the blue horse and had heard his
subsequent remark to Morrow. There was but one reference to the state
of affairs at the Three Bar.

"Now you've gone and raised hell," one boy from the Halfmoon D remarked
to Harris. "You'll have folks out looking for yo