"Crazy bunch of booze-fighters," Bud condemned the crowd tersely.
"Say, whyn't you up here drinkin' with the rest?" Steve Godfrey, standing on a keg behind the bar, bawled angrily at the artist. "You, I mean, over there by the wall. What's the matter with you? Sick at the stummick?"
"Why, no. Thank you just the same, but I don't drink liquor."
"Don't, ay?" Steve scowled and spat into a corner. "Well, if you don't drink, dammit, you'll dance!"
Bud moved his slim body sidewise so that his gun hung handily within reach of his fingers. The young man shrugged his shoulders, closed his notebook and put it away with the pencil. The crowd had swung round and was staring and waiting to see what would happen next.
"I don't mind dancing for you," smiled the artist, "but I can't dance without music, you know."
"Can't, ay?" Steve was happy now, bullying some one who would not fight back. "Say! you git up and dance to this!"
The stranger looked at the gun in Steve's hand, glanced into Steve's eyes and stifled a yawn.
"You know very well that's impossible," he said patiently. "I've always said that this dancing to the music of a six-shooter is a fake, invented by some Eastern author for melodramatic effect. I still believe you got the idea out of some book. I wouldn't mind dancing for you, but you couldn't possibly beat time with that gun. Six shots, and I'd have to stop and wait while you reloaded. The thing isn't practical. If any one here could furnish some real music—"
"I have a mouth-harp, though you may not call that real music," Bud announced unexpectedly, and finished his beer with one long swallow. It amused young Bud to see the stupid indecision on the face of Steve Godfrey, who lacked the wit to handle an old range joke when it chanced to take a new turn.