loom inside, passed out of sight just as Jean entered. He knew he
had been seen. In front of the long, rather low-ceiled store were four
men, all absorbed, apparently, in a game of checkers. Two were playing
and two were looking on. One of these, a gaunt-faced man past middle
age, casually looked up as Jean entered. But the moment of that casual
glance afforded Jean time enough to meet eyes he instinctively
distrusted. They masked their penetration. They seemed neither curious
nor friendly. They saw him as if he had been merely thin air.

"Good evenin'," said Jean.

After what appeared to Jean a lapse of time sufficient to impress him
with a possible deafness of these men, the gaunt-faced one said,
"Howdy, Isbel!"

The tone was impersonal, dry, easy, cool, laconic, and yet it could not
have been more pregnant with meaning. Jean's sharp sensibilities
absorbed much. None of the slouch-sombreroed, long-mustached
Texans--for so Jean at once classed them--had ever seen Jean, but they
knew him and knew that he was expected in Grass Valley. All but the
one who had spoken happened to have their faces in shadow under the
wide-brimmed black hats. Motley-garbed, gun-belted, dusty-booted, they
gave Jean the same impression of latent force that he had encountered
in Colter.

"Will somebody please tell me where to find my father, Gaston Isbel?"
inquired Jean, with as civil a tongue as he could command.

Nobody paid the slightest attention. It was the same as if Jean had
not spoken. Waiting, half amused, half irritated, Jean shot a rapid
glance around the store. The place had felt bare; and Jean, peering
back through gloomy space, saw that it did not contain much. Dry goods
and sacks littered a long rude counter; long rough shelves divided
their length into stacks of canned foods and empty sections; a low
shelf back of the counter held a generous burden of cartridge boxes,
and next to it stood a rack of rifles. On the counter lay open cases
of plug tobacco, the odor of which was second in strength only to that
of rum.

Jean's swift-roving eye reverted to the men, three of whom were
absorbed in the greasy checkerboard. The fourth man was the one who
had spoken and he now deigned to look at Jean. Not much flesh was
there stretched over his bony, powerful physiognomy. He stroked a lean
chin with a big mobile hand that suggested more of bridle holding than
familiarity with a bucksaw and plow handle. It was a lazy