By careful tailoring the broad shoulders of Ben Connor were made to appear fashionably slender, and he disguised the depth of his chest by a stoop whose model slouched along Broadway somewhere between sunset and dawn. He wore, moreover, the first or second pair of spats¹ that had ever stepped off the train at Lukin Junction², a glowing Scotch³ tweed, and a Panama hat of the color and weave of fine old linen⁴. There was a skeleton at this Feast of Fashion, however, for only tight gloves could make the stubby fingers and broad palms of Connor presentable. At ninety-five in the shade gloves were out of the question, so he held a pair of yellow chamois in one hand and in the other an amber⁵-headed cane⁶. This was the end of the little spur-line, and while the train backed off down the track, staggering across the switch, Ben Connor looked after it, leaning upon his cane just forcibly enough to feel the flection of the wood. This was one of his attitudes of elegance⁷, and when the train was out of sight, and only the puffs⁸ of white vapor⁹ rolled around the shoulder of the hill, he turned to look the town over, having already given Lukin Junction ample time to look over Ben Connor.  
The little crowd was not through with its survey, but the eye of the imposing¹⁰ stranger abashed¹¹ it. He had one of those long somber¹² faces which Scotchmen call "dour¹³." The complexion¹⁴ was sallow, heavy pouches¹⁵ of sleeplessness¹⁶ lay beneath his eyes, and there were ridges¹⁷ beside the corners of his mouth which came from an habitual¹⁸ compression of the lips. Looked at in profile he seemed to be smiling broadly so that the gravity of the full face was always surprising. It was this that made the townsfolk look down. After a moment, they glanced back at him hastily. Somewhere about the corners of his lips or his eyes there was a glint of interest, a touch of amusement—they could not tell which, but from that moment they were willing to forget the clothes and look at the man.
 
While Ben Connor was still enjoying the situation, a rotund fellow bore down on him.
 
"You're Mr. Connor, ain't you? You wired for a room in the hotel? Come on, then. My rig is over here. These your grips?"
 
He picked up the suit case and the soft leather traveling bag, and led the way to a buckboard at which stood two downheaded ponies¹⁹.
 
"Can't we walk?" suggested Ben Connor, looking up and down the street at the dozen sprawling²⁰ frame houses; but the fat man stared at him with calm pity. He was so fat and so good-natured that even Ben Connor did not impress him greatly.
 
"Maybe you think this is Lukin?" he asked.
 
When the other raised his heavy black eyebrows²¹ he explained: "This ain't nothing but Lukin Junction. Lukin is clear round the hill. Climb in, Mr. Connor."
 
Connor laid one hand on the back of the seat, and with a surge of his strong shoulders leaped easily into his place; the fat man noted²² this with a roll of his little eyes, and then took his own place, the old wagon²³ careening toward him as he mounted the step. He sat with his right foot dangling²⁴ over the side of the buckboard, and a plump shoulder turned fairly upon his passenger so that when he spoke²⁵ he had to throw his head and jerk out the words; but this was apparently²⁶ his time-honored position in the wagon, and he did not care to vary it for the sake of conversation. A flap of the loose reins²⁷ set the horses jog-trotting out of Lukin Junction down a gulch²⁹ which aimed at the side of an enormous mountain, naked, with no sign of a village or even a single shack³⁰ among its rocks. Other peaks crowded close on the right and left, with a loftier range behind, running up to scattered³¹ summits white with snow and blue with distance. The shadows of the late afternoon were thick as fog in the gulch, and all the lower mountains were already dim so that the snow-peaks in the distance seemed as detached, and high as clouds. Ben Connor sat with his cane between his knees and his hands draped over its amber head and watched those shining places until the fat man heaved his head over his shoulder.
 
"Most like somebody told you about Townsend's Hotel?"
 
His passenger moved his attention from the mountain to his companion. He was so leisurely³² about it that it seemed he had not heard.
 
"Yes," he said, "I was told of the place."
 
"Who?" said the other expectantly.
 
"A friend of mine."
 
The fat man grunted³³ and worked his head around so far that a great wrinkle rolled up his neck close to his ear. He looked into the eye of the stranger.
 
"Me being Jack³⁴ Townsend, I'm sort of interested to know things like that; the ones that like my place and them that don't."
 
Connor nodded, but since he showed no inclination³⁵ to name his friend, Jack Townsend swung on a new tack³⁶ to come to the windward of this uncommunicative guest. Lukin was a fairly inquisitive³⁷ town, and the hotel proprietor³⁸ usually contributed his due portion and more to the gossips.
 
"Some comes for one reason and some for another," went on Townsend, "which generally it's to hunt and fish. That ain't funny come to think of it, because outside of liars³⁹ nobody ever hooked finer trout⁴⁰ than what comes out of the Big Sandy. Some of 'em comes for the mining—they was a strike over to South Point last week—and some for the cows, but mostly it's the fishing and the hunting."
 
He paused, but having waited in vain he said directly: "I can show you the best holes in the Big Sandy."
 
There was another of those little waits with which, it seemed, the stranger met every remark; not a thoughtful pause, but rather as though he wondered if it were worth while to make any answer.
 
"I've come here for the silence," he said.
 
"Silence," repeated Townsend, nodding in the manner of one who does not understand.
 
Then he flipped⁴¹ the roan with the butt⁴² of his lines and squinted⁴³ down the gulch, for he felt there might be a double meaning in the last remark. Filled with the gloomy conviction that he was bringing a silent man to his hotel, he gloomily surveyed the mountain sides. There was nothing about them to cheer him. The trees were lost in shadows and all the slopes seemed quite barren of life. He vented⁴⁴ a little burst of anger by yanking at the rein²⁸ of the off horse, a dirty gray.
 
"Giddap, Kitty, damn your eyes!"
 
The mare⁴⁵ jumped, struck a stone with a fore⁴⁶ foot, and stumbled heavily. Townsend straightened her out again with an expert hand and cursed.
 
"Of all the no-good hosses I ever see," he said, inviting⁴⁷ the stranger to share in his just wrath⁴⁸, "this Kitty is the outbeatingest, no good rascal⁴⁹. Git on, fool."
 
He clapped the reins along her back, and puffed⁵⁰ his disgust.
 
"And yet she has points. Now, I ask you, did you ever see a truer Steeldust? Look at that high croup and that straight rump. Look at them hips⁵¹, I say, and a chest to match 'em. But they ain't any heart in her. Take a hoss through and through," he went on oracularly, "they're pretty much like men, mostly, and if a man ain't got the heart inside, it don't make no difference how big around the chest he measures."
 
Ben Connor had leaned forward, studying the mare.
 
"Your horse would be all right in her place," he said. "Of course, she won't do up here in the mountains."
 
Like any true Westerner of the mountain-desert, Jack Townsend would far rather have been discovered with his hand in the pocket of another man than be observed registering surprise. He looked carefully ahead until his face was straight again. Then he turned.
 
"Where d'you make out her place to be?" he asked carelessly.
 
"Down below," said the other without hesitation⁵², and he waved his arm. "Down in soft, sandy irrigation country she'd be a fine animal."
 
Jack Townsend blinked. "You know her?" he asked.
 
The other shook his head.
 
"Well, damn my soul!" breathed the hotel proprietor. "This beats me. Maybe you read a hoss's mind, partner?"
 
Connor shrugged⁵³ his shoulders, but Townsend no longer took offense⁵⁴ at the taciturnity of his companion; he spoke now in a lower confiding⁵⁵ voice which indicated an admission of equality.
 
"You're right. They said she was good, and she was good! I seen her run; I saddled her up and rode her thirty miles through sand that would of broke the heart of anything but a Steeldust, and she come through without battin' an eye. But when I got her up here she didn't do no good. But"—he reverted⁵⁶ suddenly to his original surprise—"how'd you know her? Recognize the brand, maybe?"
 
"By her trot," said the other, and he looked across the hills.
 
They had turned an angle of the gulch, and on a shelf of level ground, dishing out from the side of the mountain, stretched the town.
 
"Isn't it rather odd," said Connor, "for people to build a town over here when they could have it on the railroad?"
 
"Maybe it looks queer to some," nodded Townsend.
 
He closed his lips firmly, determined⁵⁷ to imitate the terseness⁵⁸ of his guest; but when he observed with a side-glance that Connor would not press the inquiry⁵⁹, talk suddenly overflowed⁶⁰. Indeed, Townsend was a running well of good nature, continually washing all bad temper over the brim.
 
"I'll show you how it was," he went on. "You see that shoulder of the mountain away off up there? If the light was clearer you'd be able to make out some old shacks⁶¹ up there, half standin' up and half fallin' down. That's where Lukin used to be. Well, the railroad come along and says: 'We're goin' to run a spur into the valley, here. You move down and build your town at the end of the track and we'll give you a hand bringing up new timber for the houses.' That's the way with railroads; they want to dictate⁶²; they're too used to handlin' folks back East that'll let capital walk right over their backs."
 
Here Townsend sent a glance at Connor to see if he stirred under the spur, but there was no sign of irritation⁶³.
 
"Out here we're different; nobody can't step in here and run us unless he's asked. See? We said, you build the railroad halfway⁶⁴ and we'll come the other half, but we won't come clear down into the valley."
 
"Why?" asked Connor. "Isn't Lukin Junction a good place for a village?"
 
"Fine. None better. But it's the principle of the thing, you see? Them railroad magnates says to us: 'Come all the way.' 'Go to the devil,' says we. And so we come halfway to the new railroad and built our town; it'd be a pile more agreeable to have Lukin over where the railroad ends—look at the way I have to drive back and forth⁶⁵ for my trade? But just the same, we showed that railroad that it couldn't talk us down."
 
He struck his horses savagely⁶⁶ with the lines; they sprang from the jog-trot into a canter, and the buckboard went bumping down the main street of Lukin.