"I don't know," the Ramblin' Kid answered, without stopping, "I just got a hunch to get him in case I need him. Anyhow, it won't hurt him to stand out a while—they've been eatin' all day."
"Then I'll get Old Pie Face, too," Skinny replied.
They saddled the bronchos and rode out of the barn.
"Where'll we go?" Skinny asked.
"Reckon we'd better go back down to Sabota's," the Ramblin' Kid said as they turned their horses in the direction of the pool-room, "if you still insist on makin' a blamed fool of yourself an' gettin' drunk. Maybe Mike's back by now. Anyhow, there might be a little poker game goin' on—I saw a couple of the fellers from over on th' Purgatory come in a while ago!"
They left Captain Jack and Pie Face standing, with bridle reins dropped, across the street and in the broad shaft of light streaming from the open door of the pool-room, and went into the resort.
The place was well filled. Sabota had returned, evidently with an ample supply of the fiery stuff he called "whisky." Like vultures that unerringly seek and find the spot where a carcass has fallen the thirsty of Eagle Butte had gathered at the Elite Amusement Parlor.
Inside the door of the pool-room and at the left, as one entered, was a hardwood bar eighteen or twenty feet long and over which at one time, in the days before Eagle Butte "reformed," had been dispensed real "tarantula juice." The back bar, with its big mirrors and other fixtures, was as it had been when the place was a regular saloon. At the right of the room, opposite the bar, were several round, green-topped card tables. In the rear was the billiard and pool equipment, which entitled the place to the name "pool-room." Just across from the farther end of the bar and near the last card table a half-dozen hard-looking, small-town "toughs"—creatures who loafed about Sabota's and aided him, as occasion required, in his boot-legging operations or other questionable enterprises—were lounging, some standing, some sitting, watching a slow poker game going on at the last table. Cards, under the laws of Texas, are taboo, but for some reason Sabota managed to get by and games were allowed in his place.
The two cowboys the Ramblin' Kid had mentioned, a rancher from the irrigated section near Eagle Butte and "Jeff" Henderson, one of Sabota's henchmen, who was playing for the house, were sitting in at the game.
Half-way down the room at one side against the wall a mechanical player piano was grinding out garish, hurdy-gurdy music.