He hesitated, sitting in his saddle. There was life here. Why didn’t it show itself? Range hospitality was more than a courtesy to friends and neighbors. Even outlaws in a hidden camp would share food and blankets with a passing stranger. The logical accepted thing for any man faring across the plains was to make himself free wherever nightfall or mealtime overtook him. He was expected to put his horses in the stable and make himself at home. It wasn’t altogether good form to wait for an invitation. The open-handed hospitality of the old West did have its forms, and Rock knew them. He was a little surprised at himself, at his hesitation, this unaccountable feeling of delicacy, as if he were intruding. Why should he expect some one to rush out of that house to bid him welcome? Why did he hesitate? He asked himself that question in so many words, as he rode on to the stable. It was a large stable, well kept, with room in it for twenty horses. Harness hung on pegs against the wall. The mangers were full of hay. The doorway was wide and high, so that Rock rode in before he dismounted. And from his seat he looked down at two horses, standing on bridle reins in their stalls, saddled, still rough with sweat. He stared at them. The saddle of the nearest, the mane and foreshoulder, was stained with blood, not yet dried to the blackening point. It stood like the brand of Cain on the gray beast--on the yellow leather. Was _that_ why he had hesitated at the house? Could a man sense the unknown? Could fear or awe or the presence of tragedy impregnate the atmosphere like a sinister mist? These were uncommon questions for a cowpuncher to stand asking himself, but Rock Holloway had an uncommon sort of mind. Still he was not merely mind. He had a body and appetites and all the natural passions man is heir to. If he had the mentality to analyze a situation, he had also a capacity for instantaneous, purposeful action. He had proved that long before he waited by the Odeon bar to halt Mark Duffy’s high-handed career. He proved it once more. He left his two horses standing where he dismounted and walked quickly toward the house. He was conscious that he merely obeyed instinct--a hunch, if you will, except that Rock distrusted hunches which had no basis in reason--because he had felt an intuition of something wrong before he laid eyes on that bloodstained saddle. He strode toward that house with the certainty that he was needed there, yet in one portion of his mind he wondered how he came by that conclusion. A door opened out of the north wall, which was guiltless of porch. One stepped from the threshold to the earth. The door stood wide. Rock looked in. He had seen many ranch rooms like this--a stove against one wall, a set of shelves for dishes and utensils, a long table in the middle of the room.