Stone scowled: "Harry, this scout is through; nobody wants him any longer in this country," he said.
"Take your quarrel somewhere else tonight—this is my celebration—do you get me, Tom?"
Under the implied threat of the determined gambler the hammer of Stone's gun came down: "I c'n get along with any man that'll do what's right," asserted Stone, trying to keep his head clear. "Laramie won't."
"Why, Tom!" expostulated Laramie, reproachfully.
The revolver clicked; the hammer was up again.
"Y' won't do what's right, will y', Laramie?" demanded Stone thickly.
There were probably fifty men in the room. As if by instinct each of them already knew on what a slender thread one man's life hung. Hawk, the quickest and surest of Laramie's friends, stood ten paces away, up the bar, but the silence was such that he could hear every deliberate word. Glasses, half-emptied, had been set noiselessly down, discussions had ceased, every eye was centered on two men and every ear strained. A few spectators tiptoed out into the office. Others that tried to pass through the swinging front-door screen into the street found a crowd already peering intently in through the open baize.
"Tom," resumed Laramie, in measured seriousness, "it's not you 'n' me can't get on—it's men here has made trouble 'tween you and me, Tom. You 'n' me rode this range when we didn't have but one blanket atween us—didn't we, Tom?" he demanded in loud tones.
Stone, in drunken irresolution, uncocked his gun but held it steady. "That's all right, Laramie," he growled.
"Did we quarrel then?" demanded Laramie, boisterously. "I'm asking you, Tom, did you 'n' me quarrel then?"