, Tommy,"
he said as his lean fingers curved to the familiar grip of the Colt 45.
"But I guess we haven't forgotten how. Now, stick tight until you hear
things wake up."

He was gone, turning back to the rear of the house, passing close to
Struve, going on to the northeast corner, slipping quietly about it,
moving like a shadow along the eastern wall. Here were two windows,
both looking into the long barroom, both with their shades drawn down
tight.

At the first window Norton paused, listening. From within came a man's
voice, the Kid's, in his ugly snarl of a laugh, evil and reckless and
defiant, that and the clink of a bottle-neck against a glass. Norton,
his body pressed against the wall, stood still, waiting for other
voices, for Galloway's, for Vidal Nunez's. But after Kid Rickard's
jarring mirth it was strangely still in the Casa Blanca; no noise of
clicking chips bespeaking a poker game, no loud-voiced babble, no sound
of a man walking across the bare floor.

"They're waiting for me," was Norton's quick thought. "Galloway knew
I'd come."

He passed on, came to the second window and paused again. The brief,
almost breathless silence within, which had followed the Kid's laugh,
had already been dissipated by the customary Casa Blanca sounds; a
guitar was strumming, chips clicked, a bottle was set heavily upon the
bar, a chair scraped. Norton frowned; a moment ago something happened
in there to still men's tongues. What was it? It was Galloway who
gave him his answer.

"So you came, did you, Vidal?" There was a jeer in the heavy voice.
"Scared to come, eh? And scared worse to stay away!" Galloway's short
laugh was as unpleasant as ever Rickard's had been.

"Si; I am here," the voice of Vidal Nunez was answering, quick, eager,
sibilant with its unmistakable nervous excitement. "Pete tell me what
you say an' I come." He lifted his voice abruptly, breaking into a
soft Southern oath. "Like a cat, to jump through the little window an'
roll on the floor an' by God, jus' in time. There is one man at the
back with a gun an' one man in front an' another man . . ."

"Let 'em come," cried Galloway loudly, a heavy hand smiting a table top
so that a glass jumped and fell breaking to the floor. "Only," and he
sent his voice booming out warningly, "any man who chips in unasked and
starts trouble in my house can take what's coming to him."

So then Vidal had just arrived, it had been his sudden entrance w