uld go to her
and throw it in her lap, a hatful, and say, "Come on, girl"--well, women
were like that, he told himself.

Ahead of Smith, on the dusty flat, was the little cow-town, looking, in
the distance, like a scattered herd of dingy sheep. He was glad his ride
was ended for the day. He was thirsty, hot, and a bit tired.

Tinhorn Frank, resting the small of his back against a monument of elk and
buffalo horns in front of his log saloon, was the first to spy Smith
ambling leisurely into town.

"There's Smithy!" he exclaimed to the man who loafed beside him, "and he's
got a roll!"

His fellow lounger looked at him curiously.

"Tinhorn, I b'lieve you kin _smell_ money; and I swear they's kind of a
scum comes over your eyes when you see it. How do you know he's carryin' a
roll?"

Tinhorn Frank laughed.

"I know Smithy as well as if I had made him. I kin tell by the way he
rides. I always could. When he's broke he's slouchy-like. He don't take no
pride in coilin' his rope, and he jams his hat over his eyes--tough. Look
at him now--settin' square in the saddle, his rope coiled like a top
Californy cowboy on a Fourth of July. That's how I know. Hello, Smithy!
Fall off and arrigate."

"Hullo!" Smith answered deliberately.

"How's she comin'?"

"Slow." He swung his leg over the cantle of the saddle.

"What'll you have?" Tinhorn slapped Smith's back so hard that the dust
rose.

"Get me out somethin' stimulating, somethin' fur-reachin', somethin' that
you can tell where it stops. I want a drink that feels like a yard of
barb-wire goin' down." Smith was tying his horse.

"Here's somethin' special," said Tinhorn, when Smith went inside. "I keeps
it for my friends."

Smith swallowed nearly a tumblerful.

"When I drinks, I drinks, and I likes somethin' I can notice." He wiped
the tears out of his eyes with the back of his hand.

"I guarantee you kin notice that in about five minutes. It's a never
failing remedy for man and beast--not meaning to claim that its horse
liniment at all. Put it back, Smithy; your money ain't good here!"

Tinhorn Frank's dark eyes gleamed with an avaricious light at sight of the
roll of yellow banknotes which Smith flung carelessly upon the bar, but he
had earned his living by his wits too long to betray eagerness. He masked
the adamantine hardness of his grasping nature beneath an air of generous
and bluff good-fellowship.

He was a dark man, with a skin of oily sallowness; thick