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Someone was in the doorway. Another figure came from the dark line of the shed and moved to the gate which was in the north side of the wall. He could make out the man in the doorway now—Billy Teach- out, the station agent. And as the gate swung open there was the Mexican, Delgado, in white peon clothes.

“Hiiiii, man!”

“Señor Delgado, keeper of the horses!”

Corsen reached down and slapped the old Mexican’s thin shoulder, then dismounted.

“God of my life, it has been months!”

“Three or four weeks.”

“It seems months.”

Corsen grinned at the old man, at the tired eyes that were now stretched open showing thin lines of veins, smiling at the sight of a friend.

Billy Teachout moved a few steps into the yard, thumbs hooked behind his suspender straps. “Ross, get in here out of the sun!”

“Let the keeper of the horses take yours,” Delgado said, still smiling. “We will talk together after.”

Corsen followed the station agent’s broad back into the house and opened his eyes wide to the interior dimness. It was dark after the sun glare. He pushed his hat brim from his eyes and stood looking at the familiar whitewashed walls, the oblong pine table, and Douglas chairs at one end of the room, the squat stove in the middle, and the red- painted pine bar at the other end. Billy Teachout edged his large frame sideways, with an effort, through the narrow bar opening.

“You wouldn’t have beer,” Corsen said.

“It’s about six months to Christmas,” Billy answered, and leaned his forearms onto the bar. He was in no hurry. Time meant little, and it showed in his loose, heavy build, in his round, clean-shaven face that he most always kept out of the sun’s reach unless it was stage time. He had worked in the Prescott office until Al Rindo’s death two years before, then had been transferred here. Al Rindo had died of a heart attack, but Billy Teachout said it was sunstroke and he’d be damned if he’d let it happen to him. He had Katie to think of, his sister’s girl who had come to live with him after her folks passed on.

It wasn’t a bad life. Five stages a week for him and Katie; Delgado and his wife to take care of. Change horses; keep them curried; feed the passengers. Nothing to it—as long as the Apaches minded.

“You can have yellow mescal or bar whiskey,” Billy said.

“One’s as bad as the other.” Corsen put his elbows on the bar. “Whiskey.”

“Kill any bugs you got.”

Corsen took a drink and then rolled a cigarette. “Where’s Katie?”

“Prettyin’. She saw you two miles away. After Delgado all week, you don’t look so bad.”

CORSEN GRINNED, relaxing the hard line of his jaw. A young face, leathery and immobile until a smile would soften the eyes that were used to sun glare, and ease the set face that talked eye to eye with the Apache and showed nothing. Corsen knew his business. He knew the Apache—his language, often even his thoughts—and the Apache respected him for it. Corsen, the Indian agent. He could make natural-born raiders at least half satisfied with a barren government land tract. The Corsens were few and far between, even in Arizona.

“Billy, I just saw Bonito.”

“God—he’s returned to the reservation?”

“I don’t know—or much care. I’m leaving.”

“What?”

“Sellers fired me day before yesterday. He’s got somebody else for the job.”

“Got somebody else! Those are Mescaleros!”

“I’m through arguing with him. Sellers is reservation supervisor. He can run things how he likes and hire who he likes. I should have quit long ago.”

“Who’s taking your place?”

“A man named Verbiest.”

“Somebody looking for some extra change.”

“He might be all right.”

Billy Teachout shook his head wearily. To him it was another example of cheap politics, knowing the right people. Agency posts were being handed out to men who cared nothing for the Indians. There was profit to be made by short-rationing their charges and selling the government beef and grain to homesteaders, or back to the Army. Even that had been done.

“Sellers has been trying to get rid of you for a long time. Finally he

made it,