expelled his breath in an angry snort. This was no time for such musings.
At Sheeps Bar, ten miles farther on, he was to meet Knapp and plan for
the holdup of the stage that tomorrow night would carry treasure to the
Cimarroon Mine at North Fork.

It was after midnight when the few faint lights of Sheeps Bar came into
view. The place was small, a main street flanked by frame houses, a
wooden arcade jutting over the sagging sidewalk. Sleep held it; blank
windowpanes looked over the arcade's roof, the one bright spot the
oblong of light that shone from the transom over the door of the
Planters Hotel. Mindful of dogs he kept to the soft earth near the
sidewalk, shooting glances left and right. But Sheeps Bar was dead;
there was not a stir of life as he passed, not the click of a latch, not
a face at door or window.

Beyond the arcade the town broke into a scattering of detached houses.
The last of these, a one-story cabin staggering to its fall on the edge
of a stream, sent forth a pale ray from a wide, uncurtained window.
Across the pane, painted in blue, were the words "Hop Sing, Chinese
Restaurant," and within the light of a kerosene lamp showed a bare
whitewashed room set forth in tables and having at one end a small
counter and cash register. On the window ledge stood a platter of tomales
and a pile of oranges.

Garland drew up, listened, then dropped off his horse and led it toward
the hovel. Before he reached it a side door opened and a head was
thrust out. A whispered hail passed and the owner of the head
emerged--a Chinaman, shadow-thin and shadow-noiseless. He slipped
through the wet grass and with an "All 'ighty, boss," that might have
been a murmur of the stirred leaves, took the horse and disappeared