After a pause he replied:

“Most on 'em, I guess.”

Another pause and a second question:

“Do you know Tom Williams?”

The eyes looked at me with a faint light of surprise in them; they looked away again, and came back with short, half suspicious, half curious glances.

“Maybe you're a friend of his'n?”

“I don't know him, but I'd like to meet him.”

“Would you, though?” Turning half round, the bar-keeper took down a bottle and glass, and poured out some whisky, seemingly for his own consumption. Then: “I guess he's not hard to meet, isn't Williams, ef you and me mean the same man.”

“I guess we do,” I replied; “Tom Williams is the name.”

“That's me,” said the tall man who was leaning on the bar near me, “that's my name.”