Riley's noncommittal attitude was by no means displeasing to the larger man. His rather brutally handsome face continued to light, as if he were recognizing in Riley Sinclair a man of his own caliber.
"You're from yonder?"
"Across the mountains."
"You travel light."
His eyes were running over Riley's meager equipment. Sinclair had been known to strike across the desert loaded with nothing more than a rifle, ammunition, and water. Other things were nonessentials to him, and it was hardly likely that he would put much extra weight on a horse. The only concession to animal comfort, in fact, was the slicker rolled snugly behind the saddle. He was one of those rare Westerners to whom coffee on the trail is not the staff of life. As long as he had a gun he could get meat, and as long as he could get meat, he cared little about other niceties of diet. On a long trip his "extras" were usually confined to a couple of bags of strength-giving grain for his horse.
"Maybe you'd know the gent I'm down here looking for?" asked Riley.
"Happen to know Ollie Quade—Oliver Quade?"
"Sort of know him, yep."
Riley went on explaining blandly "You see, I'm carrying him a sort of a death message."
"H'm," said the big man, and he watched Riley, his eyes grown suddenly alert, his glance shifting from hand to face with catlike uncertainty.
"Yep," resumed Sinclair in a rambling vein. "I come from a gent that used to be a pal of his. Name is Sam Lowrie."