Night had laid a velvet hand over the bleak shacks of Powder Springs, endowing them with an illusion of beauty; and the half-moon, up at midnight, cast long shadows across the street from the false fronts of stores and saloons. Swinging doors leapt open and closed, letting out winks of yellow light, the dance-hall down the line was ablaze; but except for one man and the horses at the rack the straggling street was empty. He came strolling down the walk from the dim hotel, but as he passed the row of horses he stopped in his stride and the song died on his lips. A ray of light, like the sudden stab of lightning, had swept the gaunt hip of a horse and in that moment of illumination he had seen his own horse-brand, burned into the buckskin hide.

Genre: Western