Du Sang, greatly embarrassed by the affair--he had curious pink eyes--blinked and got away to the stables. When Rebstock joined him the Williams Cache party were saddling to go home. Du Sang made no reference to his gift horse and saddle, but spoke of the man that had held the target aces. "He must be a sucker!" declared Du Sang, with an oath. "I wouldn't do that for any man on top of ground. Who is he?" "That man?" wheezed Rebstock. "Never have no dealings with him. He plays 'most any kind of a game. He's always ready to play, and holds aces most of the time. Don't you remember my telling about the man that got Chuck Williams and hauled him out of the Cache on a buckboard? That's the man. Here, he give me this for you; it's your card." Rebstock handed Du Sang the target ace of clubs. "Why didn't you thank Murray Sinclair, you mule?" Du Sang, whose eyelashes were white, blinked at the hole through the card, and looked around as he rode back across the field for the man that had held it; but Whispering Smith had disappeared. He was at that moment walking past the barbecue pit with George McCloud. "Rebstock talks a great deal about your shooting, Gordon," said McCloud to his companion. "He and I once had a little private match of our own. It was on the Peace River, over a bunch of steers. Since then we have got along very well, though he has an exaggerated opinion of my ability. Rebstock's worst failing is his eyesight. It bothers him in seeing brands. He's liable to brand a critter half a dozen times. That albino, Du Sang, is a queer duck. Sinclair gave him a fine horse. There they go." The Cache riders were running their horses and whooping across the creek. "What a hand a State's prison warden at Fort City could draw out of that crowd, George!" continued McCloud's companion. "If the right man should get busy with that bunch of horses Sinclair has got together, and organize those up-country fellows for mischief, wouldn't it make things hum on the mountain division for a while?" McCloud did not meet the host, Lance Dunning, that day, nor since the day of the barbecue had Du Sang or Sinclair seen Whispering Smith until the night Du Sang spotted him near the wheel in the Three Horses. Du Sang at once drew out of his game and left the room. Sinclair in the meantime had undertaken a quarrelsome interview with Whispering Smith. "I supposed you knew I was here," said Smith to him amiably. "Of course I don't travel in a private car or carry a bill-board on my back, but I haven't been hiding." "The last time we talked," returned Sinclair, measuring words carefully, "you were going to stay out of the mountains." "I should have been glad to, Murray. Affairs are in such shape on the division now that somebody had to come, so they sent for me." The two men were sitting at a table. Whispering Smith was cutting and leisurely mixing a pack of cards.