"I was just a-wonderin'. Yuh see, me an' my friend are thinkin' o' prospectin' the Fryin' Pans, an' we was a-wonderin' how the game was. Don't want to pack much grub if we can help it."
"The Frying Pans! Why, Bill Archer has a claim there. Never gets anything out of it, though. Works it hard enough, too, or he used to at any rate. Odd. About three weeks ago he told me he was riding out to give it another whirl. Last week, Tuesday, to be exact, I was riding about twenty miles south of here and I met Bill Archer riding north. He seemed quite surprised to meet me. I guess he doesn't work that claim as much as he says."
"That's the way we come north—through that country east of the Blossom trail."
"Oh, I was west of the Blossom trail—fully ten miles west. What? Going already? Why, I haven't had time to ask you about that extraordinary case of ringbone you ran across in Texas. Wait. I'll get a book. I want to show you something."
It was fully an hour before Loudon could tear himself away from Judge Allison. As he crossed the street, a buckboard drawn by two sweating, dust-caked ponies rattled past him and stopped in front of the Judge's office. The driver was a woman swathed in a shapeless duster, her face hidden by a heavy veil, and a wide-brimmed Stetson tied sunbonnet-fashion over her ears. At first glance she was not attractive, and Loudon, absorbed in his own affairs, did not look twice.
"Find out anythin'?" inquired Laguerre, when Loudon met him at the hotel corral.
"I found out that when Archer came back from that claim in the Fryin' Pans he come from the direction o' the railroad. The Judge met him twenty mile south an' ten mile west o' the trail to Blossom. Blossom is almost due south o' here. The next station west is Damson. We'll go to Damson first. C'mon an' eat."
The long table in the dining room was almost deserted. At one end sat Archer and a lanky person in chaps. Loudon caught the lanky gentleman casting sidelong glances in his direction. Archer did not look up from his plate. It was the first meal at which they had met either the dance-hall keeper or his tall friend.
"I wonder," mused Loudon. "I wonder."
After dinner Loudon inquired of the bartender whether it was Archer's custom to eat at the hotel.