“Hi, hi, you gamblin’ fool,” some one in back of him yelled. “I hope you stub your toe and break yore damned haid. You let me know how the town is when you git there!” “You tell him, cowboy!” Johnny flung over his shoulder. “I crave food and pleasure!” Laughter of marked contempt greeted this retort. Somebody cried: “Liar!” Johnny was strictly a night-blooming plant; this talk of food was just talk. At the hotel, Vin was going about lighting the lamps. No one ever locked a door. In turn, he left a light in Crosbie Traynor’s room. The sleeper had not moved. Vin surveyed him calmly, wondering if he had ever seen the man before. Without his hat, Traynor seemed older. Vincenzo shrugged his shoulders as he turned away. The man was a total stranger to him. And still this mysterious _señor_ aroused the Basque’s curiosity. Vin had been on the desert too long not to have learned the wisdom of keeping his own counsel; but he took much pleasure from building romantic adventures around his guests. Some _señors_ there had been who were in great haste. He had sped them on their way. But they were not forgotten. This man was in no seeming haste, but something about him sent delicious little chills racing up and down Vin’s spine. He would have spent more time on the matter had not Scanlon called to him at the moment. Johnny and the other Diamond-Bar warriors had arrived. In this democratic inn the proprietors—or to be exact, one of them—served the meals. His name was not Scanlon, that individual confining his efforts to the well-known cash register and the dealing of much poker. Jackson Kent, the big boss of the Diamond-Bar, came in before supper was over. He was a hawk-faced old man, silent as a rule. Hobe Ferris, his foreman, was with him. Pushing back the knife and fork set before him, the old man began stacking five, ten, and twenty dollar gold pieces into neat little piles. This was pay night. Some of the boys had not drawn a cent in three months. Hobe called off their names and the amounts due, and old man Kent counted it out to them as they filed past. The owner of the Diamond-Bar caressed his little stacks of gold pieces with his fingers as the piles grew smaller and smaller. He caught Scanlon eyeing him. “Might jest as well be payin’ him,” he muttered to Hobe, shaking his head regretfully. “What a waste of good money this is,” he added. “Won’t a one of ’em have a cent left time they git back to the ranch.” “You ain’t includin’ Johnny in that remark, be you?” Hobe demanded. “Ain’t one of the boys but owes him plenty cash right now. He’ll git more of their jack tonight.”