Buck Daniels found the blacksmith seated on a box before his place of business; it was a slack time for Gary Peters and he consoled himself for idleness by chewing the stem of an unlighted corn-cob, whose bowl was upside down. His head was pulled down and forward as if by the weight of his prodigious sandy moustache, and he regarded a vague horizon with misty eyes. "Seen you comin' out of O'Brien's," said the blacksmith, as Buck took possession of a nearby box. "What's the news?" "Ain't any news," responded Buck dejectedly. "Too much talk; no news." "That's right," nodded Gary Peters. "O'Brien is the out-talkingest man I ever see. Ain't nobody on Brownsville can get his tongue around so many words as O'Brien." So saying, he blew through his pipe, picked up a stick of soft pine, and began to whittle it to a point. "In my part of the country," went on Buck Daniels, "they don't lay much by a man that talks a pile." Here the blacksmith turned his head slowly, regarded his companion for an instant, and then resumed his whittling. "But," said Daniels, with a sigh, "if I could find a man that knowed the country north of Brownsville and had a hobble on his tongue I could give him a night's work that'd be worth while." Gary Peters removed his pipe from his mouth and blew out his dropping moustaches. He turned one wistful glance upon his idle forge; he turned a sadder eye upon his companion. "I could name you a silent man or two in Brownsville," he said, "but there ain't only one man that knows the country right." "That so? And who might he be?" "Me." "You?" echoed Daniels in surprise. He turned and considered Gary as if for the first time. "Maybe you know the lay of the land up as far as Hawkin's Arroyo?" "Me? Son, I know every cactus clear to Bald Eagle." "H-m-m!" muttered Daniels. "I s'pose maybe you could name some of the outfits from here on a line with Bald Eagle--say you put 'em ten miles apart?" "Nothin' easier. I could find 'em blindfold. First due out they's McCauley's. Then lay a bit west of north and you hit the Circle K Bar--that's about twelve mile from McCauley's. Hit 'er up dead north again, by east, and you come eight miles to Three Roads. Go on to--" "Partner," cut in Daniels, "I could do business with you." "Maybe you could." "My name's Daniels." "I'm Gary Peters. H'ware you?" They shook hands. "Peters," said Buck Daniels, "you look square, and I need you in square game; but there ain't any questions that go with it. Twenty iron men for one day's riding and one day's silence." "M'frien'," murmured Peters. "In my day I've gone three months without speakin' to anything in boots; and I wasn't hired for it, neither." "You know them people up the line," said Daniels. "Do they know you?" "I'll tell a man they do! Know Gary Peters?"