The men were store-keepers of the settlement, though there were among them frost-bronzed ranchers and cattle-boys who had come in for provisions or their mail, and some of them commenced rallying one of their comrades who sat near the head of the table on his approaching wedding.

The latter bore it good-humoredly, and made a sign of recognition when Courthorne glanced at him.

He was a big man, with pleasant blue eyes and a genial, weather-darkened face, though he was known as a daring rider and successful breaker of vicious horses.
Courthorne sat at the bottom of the table, at some distance from him, while by and by the man at his side laughed when a girl with a tray stopped behind them.

She was a very pretty girl with big black eyes, in which, however, there lurked a somewhat curious gravity.
"Fresh pork or steak?
Fried potatoes," she said.
Courthorne, who could not see her as he was sitting, started involuntarily.

The voice was, at least, very like one he had often listened to, and the resemblance brought him a little shock of disgust as well as uneasiness.