hought, not taller than my own
shoulder, with a bent little figure dressed in wrinkled and baggy store
clothes of a snuff brown. His bullet head had been cropped so that his
hair stood up like a short-bristled white brush. His rather round face
was brown and lined. His hands, which grasped the doorposts
uncompromisingly to bar the way, were lean and veined and old. But all
that I found in my recollections afterward to be utterly unimportant.
His eyes were his predominant, his formidable, his compelling
characteristic. They were round, the pupils very small, the irises large
and of a light flecked blue. From the pupils radiated fine lines. The
blank, cold, inscrutable stare of them bored me through to the back of
the neck. I suppose the man winked occasionally, but I never got that
impression. I've noticed that owls have this same intent, unwinking
stare--and wildcats.

"Mr. Hooper," said I, "can you keep me over night?"

It was a usual request in the old cattle country. He continued to stare
at me for some moments.

"Where are you from?" he asked at length. His voice was soft and low;
rather purring.

I mentioned our headquarters on the Gila: it did not seem worth while
to say anything about Box Springs only a dozen miles away. He stared at
me for some time more.

"Come in," he said, abruptly; and stood aside.

This was a disconcerting surprise. All I had expected was permission to
stop, and a direction as to how to find the bunk house. Then a more or
less dull evening, and a return the following day to collect on my
"dare." I stepped into the dimness of the hallway; and immediately after
into a room beyond.

Again I must remind you that this was the Arizona of the 'nineties. All
the ranch houses with which I was acquainted, and I knew about all of
them, were very crudely done. They comprised generally a half dozen
rooms with adobe walls and rough board floors, with only such
furnishings as deal tables, benches, homemade chairs, perhaps a battered
old washstand or so, and bunks filled with straw. We had no such things
as tablecloths and sheets, of course. Everything was on a like scale of
simple utility.

All right, get that in your mind. The interior into which I now stepped,
with my clanking spurs, my rattling _chaps_, the dust of my
sweat-stained garments, was a low-ceilinged, dim abode with faint, musty
aromas. Carpets covered the floors; an old-fashioned hat rack flanked
the door on one side, a tall cloc