ing's adjourned," cried Jim Ellis, and got up to accept the
invitation and range along the bar with the rest. He had not been
particularly interested in bridge-whist anyway.

The others remained seated, and the bartender called across to know what
they would have. Pink cut the cards very carefully, and did not look up.
Rowdy thrust both hands in his pockets and turned his square shoulder
to the bar. He did not need to look--he knew that voice, with its shoddy
heartiness.

Men began to observe his attitude, and looked at one another. When one
is asked to drink with another, he must comply or decline graciously, if
he would not give a direct insult.

Harry Conroy took three long steps and laid a hand on Rowdy's
shoulder--a hand which Rowdy shook off as though it burned. "Say,
stranger, are you too high-toned t' drink with a common cowpuncher?" he
demanded sharply.

Rowdy half-turned toward him. "No, sir. But I'll be mighty thirsty
before I drink with you." His voice was even, but it cut.

The room stilled on the instant; it was as if every man of them had
turned to lay figures. Harry Conroy had winced at sight of Rowdy's
face--men saw that, and some of them wondered. Pink leaned back in
his chair, every nerve tightened for the next move, and waited. It
was Harry--handsome, sneering, a certain swaggering defiance in his
pose--who first spoke.

"Oh, it's you, is it? I haven't saw yuh for some time. How's
bronco-fighting? Gone up against any more contests?" He laughed
mockingly--with mouth and eyes maddeningly like Jessie's in teasing
mood.

Rowdy could have killed him for the resemblance alone. His lids drooped
sleepily over eyes that glittered. Harry saw the sign, read it for
danger; but he laughed again.

"Yuh ought to have seen this bronco-peeler pull leather, boys," he
jeered recklessly "I like to 'a' died. He got piled up the slickest I
ever saw; and there was some feeble-minded Canucks had money up on him,
too: He won't drink with me, 'cause I got off with the purse. He's got
a grouch--and I don't know as I blame him; he did get let down pretty
hard, for a fact."

"Maybe he did pull leather--but he didn't cut none, like you did, you
damn' skunk!" It was Pink--Pink, with big, long-lashed eyes purple with
rage, and with a dead-white streak around his mouth, and a gun in his
hand.

Harry wheeled toward him, and if a new light of fear crept into his
eyes, his lips belied it in a sneer. "Two of a kind!" he la