“I’ll answer some of the questions you haven’t asked, then.  My name is Anthony Bard and I’m out here seeing the mountains and having a bully time in general with my rod and gun.”

The sad eyes regarded him without interest, but Bard swung from his horse and advanced with outstretched hand.

“I may be about here for a few days and we might as well get acquainted, eh?  I’ll promise to lay off the questions.”

“I’m Logan.”

“Glad to know you, Mr. Logan.”

“Same t’you.  Don’t happen to have no fine-cut about you?”

“No.  Sorry.”

“So’m I. Ran out an’ now all I’ve got is plug.  Kind of hard on the teeth an’ full of molasses.”

“I’ve some pipe tobacco, though, which might do.”

He produced a pouch which Logan opened, taking from it a generous pinch.

“Looks kind of like fine-cut—­smells kind of like the real thing”—­here he removed the quid from his mouth and introduced the great pinch of tobacco—­“an’ I’ll be damned if it don’t taste a pile the same!”

The misty eyes centred upon Bard and a light grew up in them.

“Maybe you’d put a price on this tobacco, stranger?”

“It’s yours,” said Bard, “to help you forget all the questions I’ve asked.”

The shepherd acted at once lest the other might change his mind, dumping the contents of the pouch into the breast pocket of his shirt.  Afterward his gaze sought the dim summits of the Little Brothers, and a sad, great resolution grew up and hardened the lines of his sallow face.

“You can camp with me if you want—­partner.”

A cough, hastily summoned, covered Bard’s smile.

“Thanks awfully, but I’m used to camping alone—­and rather like it that way.”

“Which I’d say, the same goes here,” responded the shepherd with infinite relief, “I ain’t got much use for company—­away from a bar.  But I could show you a pretty neat spot for a camp, over there by the river.”

“Thanks, but I’ll explore for myself.”

He swung again into the saddle and trotted whistling down the slope toward the creek which Logan had pointed out.  But once fairly out of sight in the second-growth forest, he veered sharply to the right, touched his tough cattle-pony with the spurs, and headed at a racing pace straight for the old ruined house.

Even from a distance the house appeared unmistakably done for, but not until he came close at hand could Bard appreciate the full extent of the ruin.  Every individual board appeared to be rotting and crumbling toward the ground, awaiting the shake of one fierce gust of wind to disappear in a cloud of mouldy dust.  He left his horse with the reins hanging over its head behind the house and entered by the back door.  One step past the threshold brought him misadventure, for his foot drove straight through the rotten flooring and his leg disappeared up to the knee.

After that he proceeded more cautiously, following the lines of the beams on which the boards were nailed, but even these shook and groaned under his weight.  A whimsical fancy made him think of the fabled boat of Charon which will float a thousand bodiless spirits over the Styx but which sinks to the water-line with the weight of a single human being.