't hard to tell when they'll reach the bottom."

"Ain't you had anybody to spell you, Fatty?" broke in O'Brien.

"Yep. I got Haw-Haw Langley up there. But he ain't much help. Just sits
around with his hands folded. Kind of looks like Haw-Haw _wanted_ Jerry
to pass out."

And Matthews went humming through the swinging door.

CHAPTER XV

OLD GARY PETERS

For some moments after this Buck Daniels remained at the bar with his
hand clenched around his glass and his eyes fixed before him in the
peculiar second-sighted manner which had marked him when he sat so long
on the veranda.

"Funny thing," began O'Brien, to make conversation, "how many fellers go
west at sunset. Seems like they let go all holts as soon as the dark
comes. Hey?"

"How long before sunset now?" asked Buck Daniels sharply.

"Maybe a couple of hours."

"A couple of hours," repeated Daniels, and ground his knuckles across
his forehead. "A couple of hours!"

He raised his glass with a jerky motion and downed the contents; the
chaser stood disregarded before him and O'Brien regarded his patron with
an eye of admiration.

"You long for these parts?" he asked.

"No, I'm strange to this range. Riding up north pretty soon, if I can
get someone to tell me the lay of the land. D'you know it?"

"Never been further north than Brownsville."

"Couldn't name me someone that's travelled about, I s'pose?"

"Old Gary Peters knows every rock within three day's riding. He keeps
the blacksmith shop across the way."

"So? Thanks; I'll look him up."

Buck Daniels found the blacksmith seated on a box before his place of
business; it was a slack time for Gary Peters and he consoled himself
for idleness by chewing the stem of an unlighted corn-cob, whose bowl
was upside down. His head was pulled down and forward as if by the
weight of his prodigious sandy moustache, and he regarded a vague
horizon with misty eyes.

"Seen you comin' out of O'Brien's," said the blacksmith, as Buck took
possession of a nearby box. "What's the news?"

"Ain't any news," responded Buck dejectedly. "Too much talk; no news."

"That's right," nodded Gary Peters. "O'Brien is the out-talkingest man I
ever see. Ain't nobody on Brownsville can get his tongue around so many
words as O'Brien."

So saying, he blew through his pipe, picked up a stick of soft pine, and
began to whittle it to a point.

"In my part of the country," went on Buck Daniels, "they don't lay much
by a ma