The Longhorn was practically deserted. Not even a game of draw was in progress. The dance-girls were making up for lost sleep, and the patrons of the place were either at work or still in bed. Three men were lined up in front of the bar. One was a tall, lank person, hatchet-faced and sallow. He had a cast in his eye that gave him a sinister expression. The second was slender and trim, black of hair and eye and mustache. His clothes were very good and up to date. The one farthest from the door was a heavy-set, unwieldy man in jeans, slouchy as to dress and bearing. Perhaps it was the jade eyes of the man that made Roberts decide instantly he was one tough citizen. The line-rider ordered a drink. "Hardware, please," said the bartender curtly. "Enforcin' that rule, are they?" asked Roberts casually as his eyes swept over the other men. "That's whatever. Y'betcha. We don't want no gay cowboys shootin' out our lights. No reflections, y'understand." The latest arrival handed over his revolver, and the man behind the bar hung the scabbard on a nail. Half a dozen others were on a shelf beside it. For the custom on the frontier was that each rider from the range should deposit his weapons at the first saloon he entered. They were returned to him when he called for them just before leaving town. This tended to lessen the number of sudden deaths. "Who you ridin' for, young fellow?" asked the sallow man of Roberts. "For the A T O." The dark young man turned and looked at the cowboy. "So? How long have you been riding for Wadley?" "Nine months." "Don't think I've seen you before." "I'm a line-rider--don't often get to the ranch-house." "What ground do you cover?" "From Dry Creek to the rim-rock, and south past Box Canon." Three pair of eyes were focused watchfully on Roberts. The sallow man squirted tobacco at a knot in the floor and rubbed his bristly chin with the palm of a hand. "Kinda lonesome out there, ain't it?" he ventured. "That's as how you take it. The country _is_ filled with absentees," admitted Roberts. "Reckoned it was. Never been up that way myself. A sort of a bad-lands proposition, I've heard tell--country creased with arroyos, packed with rocks an' rattlesnakes mostly." The heavy-set man broke in harshly. "Anybody else run cattle there except old man Wadley?" "Settlers are comin' in on the other side of the rim-rock. Cattle drift across. I can count half a dozen brands 'most any day." "But you never see strangers." "Don't I?" "I'm askin', do you?" The voice of the older man was heavy and dominant. It occurred to Roberts that he had heard that voice before. "Oh!" Unholy imps of mirth lurked in the alert eyes of the line-rider. "Once in a while I do--last Thursday, for instance." The graceful, dark young man straightened as does a private called to attention. "A trapper, maybe?" he said. The cowboy brought his level gaze back from a barefoot negro washing the floor. "Not this time. He was a rustler."