"Just as well you don't go into the bar right now," Shiller explained. "You had a sort of a run-in with a feller named Cross, hadn't you—you or Casey? He's in there with a couple of his friends—hard-lookin' nuts. He's some tanked, and shootin' off his mouth. We'll have Billy bring us what we want where it's cooler."
McHale kicked a post meditatively three times.
"There's mighty little style about me, Bob," he said. "I'm democratic a lot. Havin' drinks sent up to a private room looks to me a heap like throwin' on dog."
"I asked you," said Shiller. "It's my house. The drinks are on me."
"I spoke of the dust," McHale reminded him. "That makes it my drinks. And then I done asked a man to meet me in the bar. I wouldn't like to keep him waitin'."
"I don't want trouble here," said Shiller positively. "I ask you in a friendly way not to make it."
"Well, I ain't makin' it, am I?" said McHale. "That's all right about not wantin' trouble, but I got other things to think of. This here Cross and Dade and that bunch don't run the country. Mighty funny if I have to drink in a back room for them gents. Next thing you'll want me to climb a tree. I'm allowin' to stop my thirst facin' a mirror with one foot on a rail. I'll do it that way, or you and me won't be friends no more."
"Go to it, then," said Shiller. "You always was a bullhead."
McHale grinned, hitched his holster forward a trifle, and walked toward the bar. As he entered he took a swift survey of its half dozen occupants.
Three of them were regulars, citizens of Coldstream. The others were strangers, and each of them wore a gun down his thigh. They were of the type known as "hard-faced." Cross, a glass in his right hand, was standing facing the door. As it pushed open he turned his head and stared at McHale, whom he did not immediately recognize.