“I used to know him,” the McKean girl said, a little surprised.

Maybe they didn't hear her. Bo Catlett said, “The same man supplied meat to Huachuca. Look in his war-bag you see a running iron, it's Phil Sundeen. Used to bring his beef in vented every which way; cows look like somebody was learning to write on 'em.”

Moon said, “If I remember-hired vaqueros he paid twenty a month and feed. And we see some Mexican hats, don't we?”

“Which one's Sundeen?” Bren Early asked.

As Moon studied the bunch through his glasses, the McKean girl, squinting, said, “That stringy one on the sorrel-I bet he's got a hatband made of silver conchas.”

“Something there's catching the light,” Moon said.

“And forty-fours in crossed belts with silver buckles?”

“You got him,” Moon said.

“Don't anybody listen to me,” the McKean girl said. “I used to know him when his dad was still running things, before they sent Phil Sundeen to Yuma prison.”

“That's the one,” Moon said. “You knew him, huh?”

“I was acquainted with him,” the McKean girl said. “I wasn't to have nothing to do with him and that was fine with me. He was cheeky, loud and had ugly ways about him.”

Bren Early said, “What was he in prison for?”

“As this colored man said, for using his running iron freely,” the McKean girl answered. “It might be he run a herd down here to the Mexicans. On the way home he sees One-Eye here and decides to go for the bounty trade. Ask the Indian. He wouldn't have given himself up otherwise, would he?”

The men in the adobe room looked at this girl who seemed to know what she was talking about. How old? Still in her twenties, a healthy-looking girl, though dirty and sunburned at the moment. Yes, she knew a few hard facts of life.