ntinental divide.

It need hardly be said that Duke Morgan laid claim also to the
Calabasas Spring. But on this the company, being a corporation, fought
him. And after somewhat less of argument and somewhat more of siege
and shooting, a compromise was reached whereby the company bought
annually at an exorbitant price all of Duke, Satterlee, and Vance
Morgan's hay, and as the Morgans had small rivers of water in the
mountains, and never, except when crowded, drank water, a _modus
vivendi_ was arranged between the claimants. The only sufferer through
this was the Mexican publican, who found every Morgan his landlord,
and demanding from him tithes over the bar. But force is usually met
with cunning, and such Morgans as would not pay in advance at
Calabasas, when thirsty, often found the half-mad publican out of
goods.

The Calabasas Inn stood in one of the loneliest canyons of the whole
seventy miles between Sleepy Cat and Thief River; it looked in its
depletion to be what it was, a sombre, mysterious, sun, wind, and
alkali beaten pile, around which no one by any chance ever saw a sign
of life. It was a ruin like those pretentious deserted structures
sometimes seen in frontier towns--relics of the wide-open days, which
stand afterward, stark and sombre, to serve as bats' nests or
blind-pigs. The inn at Calabasas looked its part--a haunt of rustlers,
a haven of nameless men, a refuge of road-agents.

The very first time de Spain made an inspection trip over the stage
line with Lefever, he was conscious of the sinister air of this lonely
building. He and Lefever had ridden down from the barn, while their
horses were being changed, to look at the place. De Spain wanted to
look over everything connected in any way, however remotely, with the
operation of his wagons, and this joint, Lefever had told him, was
where the freighters and drivers were not infrequently robbed of
their money. It was here that one of their own men, Bill McCarty, once
"scratched a man's neck" with a knife--which, Bill explained, he just
"happened" to have in his hand--for cheating at cards. Lefever pointed
out the unlucky gambler's grave as he and de Spain rode into the
canyon toward the inn.

Not a sign of any sort was displayed about the habitation. No man was
invited to enter, no man warned to keep out, none was anywhere in
sight. The stage men dismounted, threw their lines, pushed open the
front door of the house and entered a room of perhaps si