The walling hills were higher now. The cañon fell away swiftly to downward plunge, gravel between cut banks. Just above the horse camp it made a sharp double-S curve. Riding across a short cut of shoulder, Bob, in the lead, held up a hand to check the others. He rode up on a little platform to the right, from which, as pedestal, rose a great hill of red sandstone, square-topped and incredibly steep. Bobby waved his hat; a man on foot appeared on the crest of the red hill and zigzagged down the steeps. He wore a steeple-crowned hat and he carried a long rifle in the crook of his arm. Johnny's eyes widened. He exchanged a glance with Hales; and he observed that Smith and Hales did not look at each other. Yet they had--so Johnny thought--one brief glance coming to them, under the circumstances. Hales pitched his voice low. "You was lying about them bears, of course?" "Got to keep boys in their place," said Johnny in the same guarded undertone. "If them bears had really been pets do you suppose I'd ever have opened my head about it?" "It went down easy." Hales grinned his admiration. "You taken one chance though--about his night horse." "Not being scared, you mean? Well, he hasn't mentioned any horse having a fit. And I reckoned maybe he hadn't kept up any night horse. Really nothing much for him to do. Except cooking." "He does seem to have a right smart of company," agreed Hales. Bob returned with the last comer--a gaunt, brown man with a gift for silence. "My friend, Mr. Jones," Bob explained gravely. "He stakes his horse on that hilltop. Bully grass there. And quiet. He likes quiet. He doesn't care for strangers a-tall--not unless I stand good for 'em." The camp--a single room, some fourteen feet by eighteen, flat roofed, made of stone with a soapstone fireplace--was built in a fenced yard on a little low red flat, looped about by the cañon, pleasant with shady cedars, overhung by a red and mighty mountain at the back, faced by a mightier mountain of white limestone. The spring gushed out at the contact of red and white. The bunch of saddle horses was shut up in the water pen. Preparation for dinner went forward merrily, not without favorable comment from Mr. Smith for Bob's three bearskins, a proud carpet on the floor. Mr. Jones had seen them before; Hales and Johnny kept honorable silence on that theme. Hales and Mr. Smith set a good example by removing belt and gun; an example followed by Bob, but by neither Johnny nor Mr. Jones. The latter gentleman indeed had leaned his rifle in the corner beyond the table. But while the discussion of bearskins was most animated, Johnny caught Mr. Jones' eye, and arched a brow. Johnny next took occasion to roll his own eye slowly at the unconscious backs of Mr. Hales and Mr. Smith--and then transferred his gaze, very pointedly, to the long rifle in the corner. Shortly after, Mr. Jones rose and took a seat behind the table, with the long rifle at his right hand.