Joe swung his team off the Trail and up to the post. Silence lay all around. Joe stopped, and hoped his grin concealed the nervousness he felt when he turned to Emma. Laramie was a town complete within itself; compared to Snedeker's it was almost a city. Joe swallowed hard, already doubting the wisdom of wintering here when they might have stayed at Laramie. He comforted himself with the thought that they could still go back. He gave the reins to Emma and jumped from the wagon. "I'll go find out about things." The post, he saw, had small windows and all of them were high off the ground. The door was massive, hand-hewn timber that was liberally scratched and gouged, and Joe frowned as he looked at it. A craftsman himself, he decided that the door had been made by a poor or sloppy worker. Then he saw that the battered door had never been made that way; the cuts and gouges had been put there by ax blades and bullets. No bullet had gone all the way through, but certainly Snedeker's had been under attack. Joe lifted the latch and walked into the gloomy interior. The building was long and low, with a wooden floor built well off the ground. Only with difficulty could anyone from outside reach the small windows, but due to the raised floors, anyone on the inside could stand at them and shoot out. There were counters and shelves, but they were not heavily loaded. Over a huge stone fireplace in which chunks of wood crackled was a rack with six long rifles in it, and at one side was a pile of cured buffalo robes. Unlighted lanterns hung from the ceiling beams, and here and there smoke-blackened candles clung by their own melted wax to saucers. "Can I help you, sir?" Joe saw him then, a lean young man with straight black hair. Supple as a bull whip, he had risen with easy grace from a chair near the fireplace. He wore a cloth shirt, trousers, and leather shoes. His face was thin, with high cheek bones, and the brown eyes that were fixed steadily on Joe were humor-lighted. Joe fidgeted. This young man, and he could not be more than twenty, reminded him almost uncomfortably of Percy Pearl. Joe said, "I'm looking for Jim Snedeker. My name's Joe Tower." "I'll call him, Mr. Tow--" Before he could finish, an apparition came through an open door toward the rear of the building. Tall, it was thin to the point of gauntness. A fur hat sat on its head, and uncut gray and black hair straggled from beneath the hat. It was dressed in an ornate fringed buckskin shirt and buckskin trousers. Its feet were bare. Above a gray stubble that covered its leathery cheeks were eyes so pale and blue that they seemed to have no expression at all, but to be oddly like drifting blue smoke. Its expression was a snarl, and its voice matched the expression. "Want to see me, eh? Go ahead an' look." "I'm looking for Jim Snedeker." "Who you think I am? Pres'dent of the Unitey States?"