The very first time de Spain made an inspection trip over the stage line with Lefever, he was conscious of the sinister air of this lonely building. He and Lefever had ridden down from the barn, while their horses were being changed, to look at the place. De Spain wanted to look over everything connected in any way, however remotely, with the operation of his wagons, and this joint, Lefever had told him, was where the freighters and drivers were not infrequently robbed of their money. It was here that one of their own men, Bill McCarty, once "scratched a man's neck" with a knife--which, Bill explained, he just "happened" to have in his hand--for cheating at cards. Lefever pointed out the unlucky gambler's grave as he and de Spain rode into the canyon toward the inn. Not a sign of any sort was displayed about the habitation. No man was invited to enter, no man warned to keep out, none was anywhere in sight. The stage men dismounted, threw their lines, pushed open the front door of the house and entered a room of perhaps sixteen by twenty feet. It had been the original barroom. A long, high, elaborately carved mahogany bar, as much out of keeping as it possibly could be with its surroundings, stretched across the farther side of the room. The left end, as they faced the bar, was brought around to escape a small window opening on a court or patio to the rear of the room. Back of the bar itself, about midway, a low door in the bare wall gave entrance to a rear room. Aside from this big, queer-looking piece of mahogany, the low window at the left end of it, and the low door at the back, the room presented nothing but walls. Two windows flanking the front door helped to light it, but not a mirror, picture, chair, table, bottle, or glass was to be seen. De Spain covered every feature of the interior at a glance. "Quiet around here, John," he remarked casually. "This is the quietest place in the Rocky Mountains most of the time. But when it is noisy, believe me, it is noisy. Look at the bullet-holes in the walls." "The old story," remarked de Spain, inspecting with mild-mannered interest the punctured plastering, "they always shoot high." He walked over to the left end of the bar, noting the hard usage shown by the ornate mahogany, and spreading his hands wide open, palms down, on the face of it, glanced at the low window on his left, opening on the gravelled patio. He peered, in the semidarkness, at the battered door behind the bar. "Henry," observed Lefever, "if you are looking for a drink, it would only be fair, as well as politic, to call the Mexican." "Thank you, John, I'm not looking for one. And I know you don't drink." "You want to know, then, where the Mexican keeps his gun?" hazarded Lefever. "Not especially. I just want to know----" "Everything." "What's behind the bar. That's natural, isn't it?"