This meant gun play, and the cowboys realized this, for they lost no time in "ducking" behind shelter. Bud, too, was taking no chances, but as he continued to look, from a vantage point, he said:
"I made a mistake. He's only using glasses, same as I am. He didn't pull a gun."
"Who is he?" asked Nort.
"Anybody we know?" Dick inquired.
"Never saw him before, to my knowledge," remarked Bud. "He's a Mexican or a Greaser, I take it." These terms were almost synonymous, except that a Mexican was a little higher class than a Greaser half-breed, as the term, was sometimes applied.
"Let me take a look," suggested Yellin' Kid. "I know most of the class on the other side of the Rio Grande."
Long and earnestly the cowboy gazed through the glasses at the lone figure on the other side of Spur Creek—a gaze that was returned with interest, so to speak.
"He's Mex all right," said Yellin' Kid, handing the glasses to Billee, "but what his game is I don't know."
"Looks like he just came to size us up," observed Billee, after an observation, at the conclusion of which the stranger turned his horse and rode slowly off in the direction whence he had come.
"That's right," assented Bud.