"Well, don't you like my looks?" bridled the proprietor.
Johnny's expression was one of injured innocence. "Why, I wasn't seein' you," he explained. "I was thinkin'—but now that you mention it, I don't see nothin' th' matter with your looks. Should there be?"
The other grunted something, becoming coherent only when the words concerned business. "What's yourn?"
"A drink with you, an' some information."
"Th' drink goes; but th' information don't."
"I take it all back," soliloquized Johnny. "This town don't need a number; it don't even need a name. It's different. It's th' only one this side of Montanny where the barkeeper was hostile at th' start. I'm peaceful. My han's are up, palm out. If you won't give me information, will you tell me where I can eat an' sleep? Which of th' numerous hotels ain't as bad as th' rest of 'em?"
Davis Lee Beauregard Green slid a bottle across the bar, sent a glass spinning after it, leaned against the back bar and grinned. "Gunsight ain't impressin' you a hull lot?" he suggested.
"Why not? It's got all a man needs, which is why towns are made, ain't it?" Johnny tasted the liquor and downed it. "I allus size up a town by th' liquor it sells. I say Gunsight is a d—d sight better than I thought from a superficial examination."
Dave Green, wise in the psychology of the drinking type, decided that the stranger was not and never had been what he regarded as a drinking man; and even went so far in a quick, spontaneous flash of thought, as to tell himself that the stranger never had been drunk. Now, in his opinion, a hard-drinking, two-gun man was "bad;" but a coldly sober, real two-gun man was worse, although possibly less quarrelsome. He was certain that they lived longer. Dave was a good man with a short gun, despite his handicap; but a stirring warning instinct had told him that this stranger was the best who ever had entered his place. This impression came, was recognized, tabbed, and shoved back in his memory, all in a mechanical way. It was too plain to be overlooked by a man who, perhaps without realizing it, studied humanity, although he could not lay a finger on a single thing and call it by name.