At once Mackenzie decided to speak to Reid, certain that he had been through some misadventure in which he had suffered loss. He drew away from the window, going around the front part of the house to come to the kitchen door, thinking it might be wise to know the way the land lay around those premises. This part of the house was little larger than the shack of boards that had been built to it. There was no opening in its solid log walls, neither of window or door save alone the door opening into the kitchen. The place was a vault. Somebody was approaching, riding rapidly up the valley. There was more than one horse, Mackenzie could well make out as he stood at the corner of the house, listening. He saw Reid's shadow fall in the light that spread through the open door, and turned back to keep his watch at the window. It was not the moment to offer friendship or sympathy to Reid. Something of Reid's own brewing was coming to a boil there, some business of his own was drawing to a head in that lonely cabin among the whispering trees. Reid took up the lantern, stood a moment as if indecisive, placed it on the stove. Not satisfied with the way the light of it struck him there, apparently, he removed it and stood it in a corner. Whoever was coming, Reid did not want it known at a glance that his scabbard was empty. Mackenzie pressed a little nearer the window. When a man prepared for a meeting with that caution, he would do to watch. Reid went to the open door, where he stood like a host to receive his guests. The riders were among the trees; coming on more slowly. Now they stopped, and Reid turned to light a fresh cigarette. The flash of the match showed his face white, hat pulled down on his brows, his thin, long gamester's fingers cupped round the blaze. There fell a moment of silence, no sound of word, no movement of horse or foot upon the ground. Insects among the trees were grinding their scythes for tomorrow's reaping, it seemed, whirring in loud, harsh chorus such as one never heard out on the grazing lands. Now the sound of footsteps approaching the door. Reid came back into the room, where he stood drawing a deep breath of smoke like a man drinking to store against a coming thirst. He dropped the cigarette, set his foot on it, crushed it to sparks on the floor. Swan Carlson was in the door, the light dim on his stern, handsome face. Behind him stood his woman, a white wimple bound on her forehead like a nun. CHAPTER XXVIII SWAN CARLSON LAUGHS "So, you are here?" said Swan, standing in the door, looking about him as if he had entered an unfamiliar place. "Didn't you look for me?" Reid returned. He stood between Carlson and the closed inner door, foot on a rung of the chair in which he lately had sat, his attitude careless, easy. "A man never knows," Carlson replied, coming into the room.