He drew up and nodded. Conford, just turning away, turned quickly back and came forward. "Howdy," he said. The man, tall, lean, dark, returned the salute with another nod. He was covered with dust, as if he had ridden far and been a long time coming. His clothes were much the worse for wear, but they were mostly leather, which takes wear standing, as it were. The wide hat pulled low over his piercing dark eyes, was ornamented with a vanity of silver. The riding cuffs at his wrists were studded profusely with the same metal, as was the wide belt that spanned his narrow waist. He wore a three days' beard, and a black moustache dropped its long points to the edge of his jaw. Black hair showed beneath the hat. He was a remarkable figure, even in Lost Valley, and he commanded attention. He carried the customary two guns of the country, and he bestrode a horse that was as noticeable as himself. This horse was no denizen of Lost Valley. It was an utter alien. Its colour was a dingy black, as if it had recently been through fire, its coat rough and unkempt. Its long head was heavy and slug-like, its nose of the type known among horsemen as Roman. It was roughly built, raw-boned and angular, and of so stupendous a size that the man atop, who was six foot tall himself, seemed small by comparison. However, for all its ugliness, it possessed a seeming of vast power, a suggestion of great strength. The stranger looked the group over with his keen, hard eyes, and spoke in a slow drawl. "I reckon," he said, "I'm a-ridin' th' wrong trail. I hain't expected hyar." And turning abruptly, without another word, he jogged away around the house and started down the long slope already greying with the coming night. The foreman and the five punchers clamped over to the corner of the kitchen and watched him in speculative silence. Tharon came along and stood by Billy, her hand on the boy's arm. To Billy that sober touch confused the distances, set the strange rider dancing on the slope. "H'm," said Conford, his grey eyes narrow, "come from far an's goin' somewheres. I'll watch that duck. He looks like he's a record man to me." At supper there was much speculation about the stranger. "I'll lay a month's pay he come from Texas," said Billy, casting a side glance at his pal Curly, "them long lankys usually do. An' somehow it shows in their eyes, sort o' fierce an'--" "Billy," said Tharon severely, "if I was Curly I'd take a fall out of you. He can do it, _you_ know that an' _I_ know it." "Thanks, Miss Tharon," said Curly in his soft Southern drawl, "if you feel that-a-way about it, w'y, I don't care what _no_ little yellow-headed whipper-snapper from up Wyomin' way says to th' contrary." Billy was a bit abashed, but he stubbornly supported his contention that the stranger was a bad-man from Texas.