"I'll have to do the best I can," replied Mason. "I don't want to get killed, and I don't want to have to kill anybody. See you later, Ross."
He swung into the saddle, and fifty yards farther on turned into the livery barn where he unsaddled his horse, watered it, tied it in a stall and gave it some hay.
At the little eating-place where he went for breakfast he had to wait a long time before anything was cooked, but about the middle of the morning he went back to Ross's house, where he had a pleasant and long talk with him, renewing old times. It was nearly noon when he went up the street again and entered the saloon. Half a dozen men were there. One or two were sitting at card-tables poring over old newspapers; two were playing a game of cards; and one was standing in front of the counter talking to the bar-tender. A glass of liquor which seemed just to have been filled rested on the counter directly in front of him. The man standing there was Claib Wood. Mason walked quietly into the room without receiving more than a casual glance from any one there, and was standing close to the counter before Wood saw him.
"Well, I'm darned, if this ain't Jack Mason!" Wood exclaimed. "Where did you come from?"
"Oh, I've been cutting little circles over the prairie between here and the British line for five years now, Claib," Mason answered; "ever since the last time I saw you in Rawlins, just before you shot Rufe. I always wanted to ask you about that. How did you come to shoot him? You didn't have any quarrel with him, so far as I heard."
"Say, now, what's the matter with you, Jack?" exclaimed Claib. "Are you looking for some of the medicine that Rufe got?"
Mason laughed merrily.
"Not a bit, Claib. I'm not looking for anything, without it's a little information. Of course I've heard of bad men that would shoot a fellow down just for meanness; but I never saw one, and I was wondering if you were that kind of man. I was wondering, for example, if I were to turn around and walk to the door here, whether you would plug me before I got there? Now, I don't know anybody who can tell me about that as well as you."
Claib's eyes were bloodshot from his excesses of the night before, and as Mason talked to him an ugly light seemed to glow in them and the sneer of his face grew more pronounced. The two men were standing face to face rather close together. Claib's right hand and Mason's left hand toward the bar.
"See here, Jack," said Wood, "it looks to me like you're hunting for trouble and trying to pick a quarrel with me, and I don't want nothing of the kind. I come in here to attend to my own business, and I reckon you'd better clear out and attend to yours, if you've got any."