When he entered the hotel barroom all eyes turned to him, and he noticed a grim smile on Williams' face and that the evil countenance of the nephew was aquiver with suspicion. Walking over, he stepped close to the table, watching the play, and from where he could keep tabs on Bud Haines' every move. During the new deal Williams leaned back, stretched, and glanced up.
"Had yore supper?" he carelessly asked.
Tex nodded. "Shore: reg'lar home-cooked feed. It went good for a change. I reckon I shore earned it, too." He drew out a sack of tobacco, filled a cigarette paper and held the sack in his teeth while he rolled himself a smoke. "What's paid around here for a good, half-day's work?" he mumbled between his teeth.
"What kind of work?" judicially asked Williams.
Tex removed the sack, moistened the cigarette and held it unlighted while he answered. "Freightin' on foot, carpenterin', diggin', an' doin' what I was told to do."
"Dollar to a dollar four bits," replied Williams. "What you doin'? Hirin' out?"
"I was; but I ain't no more," replied Tex, lighting up. He exhaled a lungful of smoke and dragged up a chair. "I asked two dollars, an' there was an argument. That's all."
The hands lay where they had been dealt, Williams having let his own lay, and the players were idly listening until he should pick it up.
"What's it all about?" asked Williams. "You talk like a dish of hash."
The eager nephew squirmed closer to the table and his assumed look of indifference was a heavy failure.