No one answered his call as he rode up and dismounted. He found the place deserted and he recalled the Mexican woman's prophecy.
He pushed open the sagging door and entered. There was the oilcloth-covered table and the chairs—a broken box in the middle of the room, an old installment-house catalogue, from which the colored prints had been torn, an empty bottle—and in the kitchen were the rusted stove and a few battered and useless cooking-utensils. An odor of stale grease pervaded the place. In the narrow bedroom—Boca's room—-was a colored fashion-plate pinned on the wall.
Pete shrugged his shoulders and stepped out. Night was coming swiftly. He unsaddled Blue Smoke and hobbled him. The pony strayed off up the stream-bed. Pete made a fire by the corral, ate some beans which he warmed in the can, drank a cup of coffee, and, raking together some coarse dried grass, turned in and slept until the sound of his pony's feet on the rocks of the stream-bed awakened him. He smelt dawn in the air, although it was still dark in the cañon, and having in mind the arid stretch between the cañon and Showdown, he made breakfast. He caught up his horse and rode up the trail toward the desert. On the mesa-edge he re-cinched his saddle and turned toward the north.
Flores, who with his wife was living at The Spider's place, recognized him at once and invited him in.
"What hit this here town, anyhow?" queried Pete. "I didn't see a soul as I come through."
Flores shrugged his shoulders. "The vaqueros from over there"—and he pointed toward the north—"they came—and now there is but this left"—and he indicated the saloon. "The others they have gone."
"Cleaned out the town, eh? Reckon that was the T-Bar-T and the boys from the Blue and the Concho. How'd they come to miss you?"
"I am old—and my wife is old—and after they had drank the wine—leaving but little for us—they laughed and said that we might stay and be dam': that we were too old to steal cattle."
"Uh-huh. Cleaned her out reg'lar! How's the señora?"
Flores touched his forehead. "She is thinking of Boca—and no one else does she know."