"Got some pretty fair hooch in the house."

"Thanks, partner, but I'm due over to Sour Creek by night. I guess
that's Sour Creek over the hill?"

"Yep. New to these parts?"

"Sort of new."

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.