Suddenly it dropped, and he
seemed to glide aside, to pass out of Venters's sight. Next he
saw many horses with bridles down--all clean-limbed, dark bays or
blacks--rustlers' horses! Loud voices and boisterous laughter,
rattle of dice and scrape of chair and clink of gold, burst in
mingled din from an open doorway. He stepped inside.
With the sight of smoke-hazed room and drinking, cursing,
gambling, dark-visaged men, reality once more dawned upon
Venters.
His entrance had been unnoticed, and he bent his gaze upon the
drinkers at the bar. Dark-clothed, dark-faced men they all were,
burned by the sun, bow-legged as were most riders of the sage,
but neither lean nor gaunt. Then Venters's gaze passed to the
tables, and swiftly it swept over the hard-featured gamesters, to
alight upon the huge, shaggy, black head of the rustler
chief.
"Oldring!" he cried, and to him his voice seemed to split a bell
in his ears.
It stilled the din.
That silence suddenly broke to the scrape and crash of Oldring's
chair as he rose; and then, while he passed, a great gloomy
figure, again the thronged room stilled in silence yet deeper.
"Oldring, a word with you!" continued Venters.
"Ho! What's this?" boomed Oldring, in frowning scrutiny.
"Come outside, alone. A word for you--from your Masked Rider!"
Oldring kicked a chair out of his way and lunged forward with a
stamp of heavy boot that jarred the floor.
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