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followed.
    Chuck Harper, disgusted because he had allowed himself to exhibit concern again, ground his teeth, and turned a violent red, but, nevertheless, he could not help feeling an interest in the work of those knives. A knife was, indeed, a weapon that he favored even over a gun. It might produce less harm at long range, but at close quarters or in a crowd it was the very delight of his heart.
    This stranger was a master worker. The knives flew up as a pair and descended together, and then flicked upward again, crossed in the air, and dropped almost simultaneously into the right hand—almost simultaneously, but not quite, for that cunning hand was able to give each an upward impulse again. Then the two big knives were snatched from the bright sun and disappeared. Big Chuck Harper gasped audibly. Then, looking down at the belt of the stranger, he saw that the knives were actually in the leather sheath that fitted there, one beneath the other, yet he could have sworn that no human hand had placed them where they belonged.
    â€œYou were saying about your name?” said Dunmore.
    â€œI’m Chuck Harper.”
    â€œChuck, I’m glad to know you. When a gent has been sashaying around through these mountains and not meeting anything but a squirrel or a rabbit . . . just enough company to keep him from starving . . . it’s pretty good to run into a man again. Mighty good to hear some conversation, and all that.”
    Chuck, brooding darkly, said nothing. He was contemplatingtwo conceptions, both of which were painfully bright in his mind—one was the power that had lifted that bulk of stone. The other was the speed and craft of hand that had made the heavy pair of knives float and dance like bubbles in the air.
    â€œIf you’re Harper,” ran on the other with the same good-natured smoothness, “then I suppose that this is Harpersville?” He hardly waited to appreciate Chuck’s silence, but went on: “Of course, it is, and that means it’s where Jim Tankerton comes for his vacation, as one might say. Is that right?”
    Chuck Harper pressed his lips together and gathered anger in his heart.
    â€œThat bein’ so, here’s where I hang up my hat, but I might as well put up the mare, first. I’ll just take her around to the stable.” He stood up, and went to the mare.
    â€œThe stable’s full,” said Harper.
    But now it was Dunmore who did not seem to hear. He broke into a whistle and started around the corner of the hotel, the mare following.
    â€œThere ain’t no room for her!” called Harper.
    â€œWhy, any little corner’ll do for her,” said Dunmore, and went on his way, the corner of the hotel quickly shutting him out of view.

T EN
    Chuck Harper fidgeted in his chair. Above all things, he hated to take note of any stranger. Indeed, there was only one human being in the world whom he feared and respected, but now he felt that he had been pressed into a corner, and that he would have to respond. He first slid a heavy Colt from an armpit holster and saw that it was in good working order. Then he rose, shrugged his shoulders more comfortably into the loose raincoat that covered them, and tugged his hat lower over his eyes. Then he went with long strides in pursuit of the newcomer.
    When he came to the door of the barn, he could hear the rustle of hay being forked down in the loft. When he stalked down the aisle of the stable, he found cause to stop with a jolt, for in the one box stall of which he boasted there now stood not the tall and powerful bay gelding that had been there in the morning, but the sleek and lovely mare on which Dunmore had just arrived. He rubbed his eyes, hardly believing what hesaw, and now the stranger came down the ladder from the mow and dropped lightly on the floor.
    Chuck Harper laid a heavy hand upon his shoulder. “You changed them hosses, you . . . ,” began Chuck. He stopped himself there. For