“Henry,” observed Lefever, “if you are looking for a drink, it would only be fair, as well as politic, to call the Mexican.”
“Thank you, John, I’m not looking for one. And I know you don’t drink.”
“You want to know, then, where the Mexican keeps his gun?” hazarded Lefever.
“Not especially. I just want to know–––”
“Everything.”
“What’s behind the bar. That’s natural, isn’t it?”
Very complete fittings and compartments told 43 of the labor spent in preparing this inner side for the convenience of the bartender and the requirements of exacting patrons, but nothing in the way of equipment, not so much as a pewter spoon, lay anywhere visible.
De Spain, turning, looked all around the room again. “You wouldn’t think,” he said slowly, “from looking at the place there was a road-agent within a thousand miles.”
“You wouldn’t think, from riding through the Superstition Mountains there was a lion within a thousand miles. I’ve hunted them for eleven years, and I never saw one except when the dogs drove ’em out; but for eleven years they saw me. If we haven’t been seen coming in here by some of this Calabasas bunch, I miss my guess,” declared Lefever cheerfully.
The batten door behind the bar now began to open slowly and noiselessly. Lefever peered through it. “Come in, Pedro,” he cried reassuringly, “come in, man. This is no officer, no revenue agent looking for your license. Meet a friend, Pedro,” he continued encouragingly, as the swarthy publican, low-browed and sullen, emerged very deliberately from the inner darkness into the obscurity of the barroom, and bent his one good eye searchingly on de Spain. “This,” Lefever’s left hand lay familiarly on the back of 44 de Spain’s shoulder, “is our new manager, Mr. Henry de Spain. Henry, shake hands with Mexico.”