So
hev _you_. Air ye satisfied with hit?"

"No," he admitted honestly. "God knows I hain't!"

* * * * *

One evening Kinnard Towers entered the saloon at the Quarterhouse and
stood unobserved at the door, as he watched the roistering crowd about
the bar. It was a squalid place, but to the foreign eye it would have
been, in a sordid sense, interesting. Its walls and the eight-foot
stockade that went around it were stoutly builded of hewn timbers as
though it had been planned with a view toward defense against siege.

A few lithographed calendars from mail-order houses afforded the sole
note of decoration to the interior. The ordinary bar-mirror was
dispensed with. It could hardly have come across the mountain intact.
Had it come it could scarcely have survived.

The less perishable fixtures of woodwork and ceiling bore testimony to
that in their pitted scars reminiscent of gun-play undertaken in rude
sport--and in deadly earnest. The shutters, heavy and solid, had on
occasion done service as stretchers and cooling boards. Vilely odorous
kerosene lamps swung against the walls, dimly abetted by tin
reflectors, and across the floor went the painted white line of the
state border. At the room's exact center were two huge letters. That
east of the line was V. and that west was K.

The air was thick with the reek of smoke and the fumes of liquor. The
boisterousness was raucously profane--the general atmosphere was that
of an unclean rookery.

As the proprietor stood at the threshold, loud guffaws of maudlin
laughter greeted his ears and, seeking the concrete cause, his gaze
encountered Ratler Webb, propped against the bar, somewhat redder of
eye and more unsteady on his legs than usual. Obviously he was the
enraged butt of ill-advised heckling.

"Ye hadn't ought ter hev crossed Bear Cat," suggested a badgering
voice. "Then ye wouldn't hev a busted nose. He's a bad man ter fool
with. Thar war witches at his bornin'."

"I reckon Bear Cat knows what's healthful fer him," snarled Webb. "When
we meets in ther highway he rides plumb round me."

The speaker broke off and, with a sweeping truculence, challenged
contradiction. "Air any of you men friends of his'n? Does airy one of
ye aim ter dispute what I says?" Silence ensued, possibly influenced by
the circumstance that Ratler's hand was on his pistol grip as he spoke,
so he continued:

"Ef I sought ter be a damn' tale-bearer, I