Alma Caldwell watched him through one of the windows of the ranch house. He had hardly spoken to her while he was at the ranch, nor did he turn in the saddle for a backward glance at the place. She saw his broad shoulders and wide gray hat, rise and fall in easy undulations, as the Texan’s mount was urged into a gallop toward Wild Horse. CHAPTER IX SOME DEBTS ARE PAID. The arrival of one additional horseman in the principal street of Wild Horse was something to attract no attention whatever. Several hundred riders had arrived at that headquarters of industry and gossip, ahead of Milton Bertram. Most of them, it is to be said, were interested in the gossip, rather than the prosaic affairs of the cattle industry. The news of Jimmy Coyle’s shooting by the masked horseman had spread fast and far, and men had ridden far and fast to talk it over. Only the Texan did not urge his horse at top speed, like the others, as he entered the town. On the contrary he slackened the animal’s steady pace a trifle. One might have thought that he had come in from a distant camp for supplies, and that he would soon be heading forth again, a slave of the vast region of silences which binds its victims none the less strongly because they are willing in servitude. Perhaps something in the unusual keenness of the Texan’s glance from one building to another would have told one of his intimate friends that something out of the ordinary was on his mind. But to the average beholder he was merely one more cowboy, riding into town, a handsome fellow to be sure, long of limb, broad of shoulder, and with a certain supple grace in the saddle that marks the born horseman. His features, which ordinarily were expressive of the lightest sentiment that crossed his mind, to-day seemed molded into a hard mask of determination. His dark eyes, under level brows, were calm enough, but it would take little, apparently, to light the fires of anger in them. Obviously the Texan was undecided just where to stop. He reined his horse momentarily in front of the hotel and then drove on and crossed the street to a saloon and gambling place, known as Laroque’s. As he dismounted and tied his horse to a hitching rack that had little vacant space, the Texan’s motions were deliberate. He made sure that his horse was securely tied, something entirely unnecessary, seeing that the well-trained animal would not have stirred away if the reins had been left trailing. But, while he was going through the mechanics of making secure his horse’s place at the rack, the Texan’s mind had leaped ahead, and he was visualizing Laroque’s place something as follows: