xteen by
twenty feet. It had been the original barroom. A long, high,
elaborately carved mahogany bar, as much out of keeping as it possibly
could be with its surroundings, stretched across the farther side of
the room. The left end, as they faced the bar, was brought around to
escape a small window opening on a court or patio to the rear of the
room. Back of the bar itself, about midway, a low door in the bare
wall gave entrance to a rear room. Aside from this big, queer-looking
piece of mahogany, the low window at the left end of it, and the low
door at the back, the room presented nothing but walls. Two windows
flanking the front door helped to light it, but not a mirror, picture,
chair, table, bottle, or glass was to be seen. De Spain covered every
feature of the interior at a glance. "Quiet around here, John," he
remarked casually.

"This is the quietest place in the Rocky Mountains most of the
time. But when it is noisy, believe me, it is noisy. Look at the
bullet-holes in the walls."

"The old story," remarked de Spain, inspecting with mild-mannered
interest the punctured plastering, "they always shoot high."

He walked over to the left end of the bar, noting the hard usage shown
by the ornate mahogany, and spreading his hands wide open, palms down,
on the face of it, glanced at the low window on his left, opening on
the gravelled patio. He peered, in the semidarkness, at the battered
door behind the bar.

"Henry," observed Lefever, "if you are looking for a drink, it would
only be fair, as well as politic, to call the Mexican."

"Thank you, John, I'm not looking for one. And I know you don't
drink."

"You want to know, then, where the Mexican keeps his gun?" hazarded
Lefever.

"Not especially. I just want to know----"

"Everything."

"What's behind the bar. That's natural, isn't it?"

Very complete fittings and compartments told of the labor spent in
preparing this inner side for the convenience of the bartender and the
requirements of exacting patrons, but nothing in the way of equipment,
not so much as a pewter spoon, lay anywhere visible.

De Spain, turning, looked all around the room again. "You wouldn't
think," he said slowly, "from looking at the place there was a
road-agent within a thousand miles."

"You wouldn't think, from riding through the Superstition Mountains
there was a lion within a thousand miles. I've hunted them for eleven
years, and I never saw one except when the dogs drove