He found within the heterogeneous gathering usually to be observed in such a place. Vaqueros brushed shoulders with Chinese laundrymen, cowpunchers with soldiers, peons with cattlemen from Arizona and Texas. Here were miners and soldiers of fortune and plain tramps. More than one of the shining-eyed gamblers had a price upon his head. Several were outlaws. A score or more had taken part in the rapine and the pillage of the guerrilla warfare that has of late years been the curse of the country. It would have been hard in a day's travel to find an assembly where human life was held at less value. Among these lawless, turbulent siftings of the continent Yeager was very much at home. He merged inconspicuously into the picture, a quiet, brown-faced man with cool, alert eyes. Nobody paid the least attention to him. He might be a horse-thief or an honest cowpuncher. It was a matter of supreme indifference to those present. Experience in that outdoor frontier school which always keeps open session had taught them that a man lived longer here when he minded his own business. Steve stood close to the bar. A prospector leaned against it and talked to an acquaintance while they drank their beer. "This here's how I figure it," he was saying. "I had a little dough when I begun digging gopher holes in these here hills. Not much--say fifteen hundred, mebbe. I sure ain't got it now. Lost it in a hole in the ground. Well; I reckon I'll go on looking for it where I lost it." Casually Yeager sauntered over to the roulette table. A fat man in duck trousers--he was the agent for a firm of rifle manufacturers, Steve learned later--was bucking the wheel hard. In front of him lay a pile of gold-pieces and several stacks of chips. He was very red in the face from excitement and cocktails. The range-rider put a half-dollar on the red and won. He let it ride, won again, and shifted the chips to the black. Once more the goddess of luck favored him. He divided his pile. Half went on the red, the rest on the first number his eye caught. It happened to be seventeen. The croupier spun the wheel again. The ball whirled round, dipped down once or twice, and plumped into the compartment numbered seventeen. "Enough's a-plenty. Here's where I cash in," announced Steve cheerfully. He stuffed the bills carelessly into his pocket and strolled over to the faro table. Yeager had come on business, not for pleasure. He intended to play just enough to give a colorable reason for his presence.