from the
soles of his misshapen boots to the baggy chaperajos, to the bulging
holsters at his hips, to the gleaming cartridge belt around his waist,
to the soft green flannel shirt, to the red silk handkerchief about his
throat, to the dark unshaven face, to the drink-reddened nose, to the
mere slits of eyes, to the upturned sombrero that crowned the shock of
wiry hair; bad in detail, in ensemble, was this inebriate cowman, bad.

"Well, why don't you talk?" Himself interrupting the silence he came a
step nearer, braced himself with legs far apart. "What've you got to say
for yourselves? This ain't no Quaker meeting. Speak up. What're you all
doin' here?"

Among the crowd one man alone spoke, and that was lobster-red Bud Smith.

"Tendin' to our own business, I reckon, Pete," he explained evenly.

"You lie!" Narrower and narrower closed the slit-like eyes. "You lie by
the clock. You were planning to fix ME, you nest of skunks." From man to
man he passed the look, halted at last at the figure of the lanky
Missourian. "Some feller here figgered to pot me, and I'm lookin' to
see the colour of his hair. Who was it, I'd like to know?"

"Someone's been stuffin' you, Pete." Even, deliberate as before Smith
spoke the lie. "We don't give a whoop what you do. You can own the whole
county so far as we care. Go back and 'tend to your knittin'. Dad here
wants to close up, now."

"He does, does he? Well, he can in just a minute, just as soon as you
name the feller I mention." Of a sudden his eyes shifted, dropped like
claws on the figure of the little land man. "You know who it is I'm
lookin' for. Tell me his name."

"You don't know me very well, Pete."

"I don't, eh? You think I don't know you?" The speaker was inspecting
the other as a house cat inspects the mouse within its paws. "In other
words, you mean you know, but won't tell me." Lingeringly, baitingly,
almost exultingly, he was dragging the _denouement_ on and on. "That's
what you mean to imply, is it?"

"You've guessed it, Pete." Not a muscle in the small man's body
twitched; there was not the slightest alteration of the even tone.
There, facing death as surely as harvest follows seedtime, knowing as he
knew that but one man present could interfere to prevent, that that man
wouldn't, he spoke those four words: "You've guessed it, Pete." And but
minutes before Manning had called this man coward!

For a moment likewise Sweeney did not stir. For a second his slow bra