He had not accorded them any virtues. To him, as to the outside world, they had been merely vicious men without one redeeming feature.

“I’m much obliged to you, Euchre,” replied Duane. “But of course I won’t live with any one unless I can pay my share.”

“Have it any way you like, my son,” said Euchre, good-humoredly. “You make a fire, an’ I’ll set about gettin’ grub. I’m a sourdough, Buck. Thet man doesn’t live who can beat my bread.”

“How do you ever pack supplies in here?” asked Duane, thinking of the almost inaccessible nature of the valley.

“Some comes across from Mexico, an’ the rest down the river. Thet river trip is a bird. It’s more’n five hundred miles to any supply point. Bland has mozos, greaser boatmen. Sometimes, too, he gets supplies in from down-river. You see, Bland sells thousands of cattle in Cuba. An’ all this stock has to go down by boat to meet the ships.”

“Where on earth are the cattle driven down to the river?” asked Duane.

“Thet’s not my secret,” replied Euchre, shortly. “Fact is, I don’t know. I’ve rustled cattle for Bland, but he never sent me through the Rim Rock with them.”

Duane experienced a sort of pleasure in the realization that interest had been stirred in him. He was curious about Bland and his gang, and glad to have something to think about. For every once in a while he had a sensation that was almost like a pang. He wanted to forget. In the next hour he did forget, and enjoyed helping in the preparation and eating of the meal. Euchre, after washing and hanging up the several utensils, put on his hat and turned to go out.

“Come along or stay here, as you want,” he said to Duane.

“I’ll stay,” rejoined Duane, slowly.

The old outlaw left the room and trudged away, whistling cheerfully.

Duane looked around him for a book or paper, anything to read; but all the printed matter he could find consisted of a few words on cartridge-boxes and an advertisement on the back of a tobacco-pouch. There seemed to be nothing for him to do. He had rested; he did not want to lie down any more. He began to walk to and fro, from one end of the room to the other. And as he walked he fell into the lately acquired habit of brooding over his misfortune.

Suddenly he straightened up with a jerk. Unconsciously he had drawn his gun. Standing there with the bright cold weapon in his hand, he looked at it in consternation. How had he come to draw it? With difficulty he traced his thoughts backward, but could not find any that was accountable for his act. He discovered, however, that he had a remarkable tendency to drop his hand to his gun. That might have come from the habit long practice in drawing had given him. Likewise, it might have come from a subtle sense, scarcely thought of at all, of the late, close, and inevitable relation between that weapon and himself. He was amazed to find that, bitter as he had grown at fate, the desire to live burned strong in him. If he had been as unfortunately situated, but with the difference that no man wanted to put him in jail or take his life, he felt that this burning passion to be free, to save himself, might not have been so powerful. Life certainly held no bright prospects for him. Already he had begun to despair of ever getting back to his home. But to give up like a white-hearted coward, to let himself be handcuffed and jailed, to run from a drunken, bragging cowboy, or be shot in cold blood by some border brute who merely wanted to add another notch to his gun–these things were impossible for Duane because there was in him the temper to fight.