It was the guest’s turn to make critical inspection.

“You wouldn’t remember me,” explained the rancher.  “I came in while you were gone, and only saw you the day you returned.”  The reminiscent look reappeared.  “I used to know Landor pretty well when we were on the other side of the river, before the country settled up; but when we came over here we got too far apart and lost track of each other.”

The visitor smoked a full minute in meditative silence.  At last he glanced up.

“You knew he was dead, didn’t you?”

“Yes.  And the two youngsters grew up and got married and—­” Hawkins laughed peculiarly—­“made a fizzle of it.”

“Knew them personally, did you?” queried Manning.

“No.  I haven’t seen the young folks for ten years, and I haven’t even heard anything of them for six months now.”  He twirled the cigar with his fingers in the self-consciousness of unaccustomed gossip.  “The girl went East with Landor’s nephew, Craig, afterward, I understood.”

“Yes.”

Hawkins puffed at the cigar fiercely; then blew an avenue in the cloud of smoke obscuring his companion’s face.

“I’m not usually so confoundedly curious,” he apologised, “but, knowing the circumstances, I’ve often wondered how the affair ended.  Did they hit it off well together?”

Manning settled farther back in his chair.  One of his gnarled old hands fastened of a sudden upon the arm tightly.

“While the money lasted, yes.”

“Money!  Did they sell the ranch?”

“Mortgaged it, Craig did, until he couldn’t get another cent.”

“And then—­”

“It’s the old story.”

“They went to pieces?”

“Craig left her—­for another woman.”  The clawlike hands closed tighter and tighter.  “He never really cared for Bess.  He couldn’t.  It seems he was supporting the other woman all the time.”

Hawkins sat chewing the stump of the cigar in silence.  In a lean-to the cowboys were going to bed.  Muffled by the intervening wall came the mocking sound of their intermittent laughter.

“And then what?” asked the rancher at last.

“Bess came back.”

“Alone?”

Manning had sunk deeper and deeper into his seat.  His face was concealed by the straggling grey beard, but beneath his shaggy brows his old eyes were blazing.

“Yes, she was alone,” he said.

The cigar had gone dead in Hawkins’s lips, and he lit it jerkily.  The blaze of the match illumined a face that was not pleasant to look upon.

“And Craig himself,” he suggested, “where is he?”

“He’s back at the ranch by this time.  He went through town yesterday, just before I left, with a man who wants to buy.”

The rancher looked at the other meaningly.

“Back at the ranch—­with the Indian?”

Equally directly Manning returned the look.

“Evidently you didn’t hear all the story,” he said.  “The Indian is not there.”