The snow was everywhere white and pure, and the town was like a stain on the landscape with wisps of smoke rising and trailing across the hilltops.
Down to the edge of the town he rode, left his cow-pony standing with hanging head outside a saloon, strode through the swinging doors, and asked of the bartender the way to the house of Martin Ryder.
The bartender stopped in his labor of rubbing down the surface of his bar and stared at the black-serge robe of the stranger, with curiosity rather than criticism, for women, madmen, and clergymen have the right-of-way in the mountain-desert.
He said: "Well, I'll be damned!--askin' your pardon.

So old Mart Ryder has come down to this, eh?
Partner, you're sure going to have a rough ride getting Mart to heaven.

Better send a posse along with him, because some first-class angels are going to get considerable riled when they sight him coming.

Ha, ha, ha! Sure I'll show you the way.
Take the northwest road out of town and go five miles till you see a broken-backed shack lyin' over to the right.

That's Mart Ryder's place." Out to the broken-backed shack rode Pierre le Rouge, Pierre the Red, as everyone in the north country knew him.