known his kind from afar,
and was hastening to them. The plainsman's eye was not yet mine; and I
smiled a little as I rode. When was I going to know, as by instinct, the
different look of horses and cattle across some two or three miles of
plain?

These miles we finished soon. The buildings changed in their aspect as
they grew to my approach, showing their desolation more clearly, and in
some way bringing apprehension into my mood. And around them the horses,
too, all standing with ears erect, watching me as I came--there was
something about them; or was it the silence? For the silence which I had
liked until now seemed suddenly to be made too great by the presence of
the deserted buildings. And then the door of the stable opened, and
men came out and stood, also watching me arrive. By the time I was
dismounting more were there. It was senseless to feel as unpleasant as
I did, and I strove to give to them a greeting that should sound easy.
I told them that I hoped there was room for one more here to-night. Some
of them had answered my greeting, but none of them answered this; and
as I began to be sure that I recognized several of their strangely
imperturbable faces, the Virginian came from the stable; and at that
welcome sight my relief spoke out instantly.

"I am here, you see!"

"Yes, I do see." I looked hard at him, for in his voice was the same
strangeness that I felt in everything around me. But he was looking at
his companions. "This gentleman is all right," he told them.

"That may be," said one whom I now knew that I had seen before at Sunk
Creek; "but he was not due to-night."

"Nor to-morrow," said another.

"Nor yet the day after," a third added.

The Virginian fell into his drawl. "None of you was ever early for
anything, I presume."

One retorted, laughing, "Oh, we're not suspicioning you of complicity."

And another, "Not even when we remember how thick you and Steve used to
be."

Whatever jokes they meant by this he did not receive as jokes. I saw
something like a wince pass over his face, and a flush follow it. But he
now spoke to me. "We expected to be through before this," he began. "I'm
right sorry you have come to-night. I know you'd have preferred to keep
away."

"We want him to explain himself," put in one of the others. "If he
satisfies us, he's free to go away."

"Free to go away!" I now exclaimed. But at the indulgence in their
frontier smile I cooled down. "Gentlemen," I said, "