"Some comes for one reason and some for another," went on Townsend, "which generally it's to hunt and fish. That ain't funny come to think of it, because outside of liars nobody ever hooked finer trout than what comes out of the Big Sandy. Some of 'em comes for the mining--they was a strike over to South Point last week--and some for the cows, but mostly it's the fishing and the hunting." He paused, but having waited in vain he said directly: "I can show you the best holes in the Big Sandy." There was another of those little waits with which, it seemed, the stranger met every remark; not a thoughtful pause, but rather as though he wondered if it were worth while to make any answer. "I've come here for the silence," he said. "Silence," repeated Townsend, nodding in the manner of one who does not understand. Then he flipped the roan with the butt of his lines and squinted down the gulch, for he felt there might be a double meaning in the last remark. Filled with the gloomy conviction that he was bringing a silent man to his hotel, he gloomily surveyed the mountain sides. There was nothing about them to cheer him. The trees were lost in shadows and all the slopes seemed quite barren of life. He vented a little burst of anger by yanking at the rein of the off horse, a dirty gray. "Giddap, Kitty, damn your eyes!" The mare jumped, struck a stone with a fore foot, and stumbled heavily. Townsend straightened her out again with an expert hand and cursed. "Of all the no-good hosses I ever see," he said, inviting the stranger to share in his just wrath, "this Kitty is the outbeatingest, no good rascal. Git on, fool." He clapped the reins along her back, and puffed his disgust. "And yet she has points. Now, I ask you, did you ever see a truer Steeldust? Look at that high croup and that straight rump. Look at them hips, I say, and a chest to match 'em. But they ain't any heart in her. Take a hoss through and through," he went on oracularly, "they're pretty much like men, mostly, and if a man ain't got the heart inside, it don't make no difference how big around the chest he measures." Ben Connor had leaned forward, studying the mare. "Your horse would be all right in her place," he said. "Of course, she won't do up here in the mountains." Like any true Westerner of the mountain-desert, Jack Townsend would far rather have been discovered with his hand in the pocket of another man than be observed registering surprise. He looked carefully ahead until his face was straight again. Then he turned. "Where d'you make out her place to be?" he asked carelessly. "Down below," said the other without hesitation, and he waved his arm. "Down in soft, sandy irrigation country she'd be a fine animal." Jack Townsend blinked. "You know her?" he asked. The other shook his head. "Well, damn my soul!" breathed the hotel proprietor. "This beats me. Maybe you read a hoss's mind, partner?"