He bit out the last words with a peculiar snap of his long teeth, a circumstance which caused Hare instantly to associate the savage clicking with the name he had heard given this man.  August Naab looked at him with gloomy eyes and stern shut mouth, an expression of righteous anger, helplessness and grief combined, the look of a man to whom obstacles had been nothing, at last confronted with crowning defeat.  Hare realized that this son was Naab’s first-born, best-loved, a thorn in his side, a black sheep.

“Say, father, is that the spy you found on the trail?” Snap’s pale eyes gleamed on Hare and the little flames seemed to darken and leap.

“This is John Hare, the young man I found.  But he’s not a spy.”

“You can’t make any one believe that.  He’s down as a spy.  Dene’s spy!  His name’s gone over the ranges as a counter of unbranded stock.  Dene has named him and Dene has marked him.  Don’t take him home, as you’ve taken so many sick and hunted men before.  What’s the good of it?  You never made a Mormon of one of them yet.  Don’t take him—­unless you want another grave for your cemetery.  Ha!  Ha!”

Hare recoiled with a shock.  Snap Naab swayed to the door, and stepped down, all the time with his face over his shoulder, his baleful glance on Hare; then the blue haze swallowed him.

The several loungers went out; August engaged the storekeeper in conversation, introducing Hare and explaining their wants.  They inspected the various needs of a range-rider, selecting, in the end, not the few suggested by Hare, but the many chosen by Naab.  The last purchase was the rifle Naab had talked about.  It was a beautiful weapon, finely polished and carved, entirely out of place among the plain coarse-sighted and coarse-stocked guns in the rack.

“Never had a chance to sell it,” said Abe.  “Too long and heavy for the riders.  I’ll let it go cheap, half price, and the cartridges also, two thousand.”

“Taken,” replied Naab, quickly, with a satisfaction which showed he liked a bargain.

“August, you must be going to shoot some?” queried Abe.  “Something bigger than rabbits and coyotes.  Its about time—­even if you are an Elder.  We Mormons must—­” he broke off, continuing in a low tone:  “Here’s Holderness now.”

Hare wheeled with the interest that had gathered with the reiteration of this man’s name.  A new-comer stooped to get in the door.  He out-topped even Naab in height, and was a superb blond-bearded man, striding with the spring of a mountaineer.

“Good-day to you, Naab,” he said.  “Is this the young fellow you picked up?”

“Yes.  Jack Hare,” rejoined Naab.

“Well, Hare, I’m Holderness.  You’ll recall my name.  You were sent to Lund by men interested in my ranges.  I expected to see you in Lund, but couldn’t get over.”

Hare met the proffered hand with his own, and as he had recoiled from Snap Naab so now he received another shock, different indeed but impelling in its power, instinctive of some great portent.  Hare was impressed by an indefinable subtlety, a nameless distrust, as colorless as the clear penetrating amber lightness of the eyes that bent upon him.