er the land.

Such was the impression borne in upon the young man riding townward on
a wiry buckskin that had just topped the rise which commanded the valley
below. The rider presented a striking enough appearance to take and
hold the roving eye of any young woman in search of romance. He was a
slender, lithe young Adonis of medium height. His hair and eyebrows
left one doubtful whether to pronounce them black or brown, but the eyes
called for an immediate verdict of Irish blue. Every inch of him spoke
of competency--promised mastership of any situation likely to arise.
But when the last word is said it was the eyes that dominated the
personality. They could run the whole gamut of emotions, or they could
be impervious as a stone wall. Now they were deep and innocent as a
girl's, now they rollicked with the buoyant youth in them. Comrades
might see them bubbling with fun, and the next moment enemies find
them opague as a leaden sky. Not the least wonder of them was that they
looked out from under long lashes, soft enough for any maiden, at a
world they appraised with the shrewdness of a veteran.

The young man drew rein above the valley, sitting his horse in the easy,
negligent fashion of one that lives in the saddle. A thumb was hitched
carelessly in the front pocket of his chaps, which pocket served also as
a holster for the .45 that protruded.

Even in the moment that he sat there a change came over Aravaipa. As a
summer shower sweeps across a lake so something had ruffled the town to
sudden life. From stores and saloons men dribbled, converging toward a
common centre hurriedly.

"I reckon, Bucky, the band has begun to play," the rider told himself
aloud. "Mebbe we better move on down in time for the music."

But no half-expected revolver shots shattered the stillness, even though
interest did not abate.

"There's ce'tainly something doing at the Silver Dollar this glad
mo'ning. Chinks, greasers, and several other kinds of citizens driftin'
that way, not to mention white men. I expect there will be room for you,
Bucky, if you hurry before the seats are all sold out."

He cantered down the plaza, swung from the saddle, threw the rein over
the pony's head to the ground, and jingled across the sidewalk into the
gambling house. It was filled with a motley crowd of miners, vaqueros,
tourists, cattlemen, Mexicans, Chinese, and a sample of the rest of the
heterogeneous population of the Southwest. Behind this assembla