That night he went to his room as usual after supper, but not to stay. At eight o’clock he flung down the book he had been trying to read, slipped the weapon which had once been James Harding’s into the pocket of his overcoat, and left the house. Half an hour later he was standing at the bar in the Draconian kennel, and Tom Deverney was welcoming him with gruff heartiness.
“Well, say! I thought you’d got lost in the shuffle, sure. Where have you been—over the range again?”
“No, I haven’t been out of town.”
“You took blame’ good care not to show up here, then,” retorted Deverney. “First you know you’ll have to be packing a card case; that’s about what you’ll have to do.”
“I have been busy,” said Brant. Then the smell of the liquor got into his nostrils and he cut himself adrift with a word. “Shall we have a drink together, and call it square, Tom?”
Deverney spun a glass across the polished mahogany and reached for a conical bottle in the cooler. “I don’t know as I ought to drink with you—you wouldn’t drink with me the last time you showed up. What shall it be—a little of the same?”
“Always,” said Brant. “I don’t mix.” He helped himself sparingly and touched glasses with the bartender.
“Here’s how.”
“Looking at you.”
Brant paid, and the bartender dipped the glasses. “Going to try your luck a while this evening?” he asked.