There was a rude group gathered about a table in the bar. The members were drinking rum from tin measures, and their vivid noses and features much aflame would not have said the habit was one lately taken up.
“Those be our friends,” whispered Noah. “That animal with the shoulders of a buffalo, the iron jaw, and no forehead to speak of, is a prize-fighter of renown. He was brought over to be a counter-weight for Rivera. I would wager, should they come together, that my man beats him to a pumice.”
The light in Noah's eyes showed no sloth of appetite for such a battle.
The rogues about the table were made uneasy by our presence. We looked them up and down at no little length, Noah with an eye of rawest insolence, enough of itself to draw resentment from an image. Noah called Rivera from where he lounged against the doorpost and held whispered converse with him touching the fellows, and all in a most apparent way of insult. But beyond a wrathful growl one might not lure them; they turned their shifty, evil eyes away, and hastily gulping the rum, shuffled from the place.
“If those ruffians are come to town for a motive of trouble,” said I, “why do not they go upon their mission? They have been weeks here. Has this Catron so much money to waste?”
“Doubtless Catron has money enough,” replied Noah. “Like yourself, however, I can not find reason for this stage-wait in the tragedy. I have tempted them to a rupture with my eye a score of times, but their conduct was always what you saw.”
Noah went with me to the General, to reply to the latter's interest concerning the ambitious one.
“He is wise and brave and true,” said Noah; “that is the worst I know of him.”
“And that should be enough,” said the General, decisively. “What more may one want than 'wise and brave and true?'”
“Then you care only for the man,” said I, “and ask nothing of his principles of politics?”