Near the end of the row, Weston slackened his pace and said: “Ye don’t mind, do ye, ef I stop at the ‘Crater’ fur a drink? Ye kin see I don’t drink but a little—ain’t had a drop sence I left home.”
Roy hesitated. He had been in saloons—out of curiosity. But his curiosity had been satisfied. In his own town and in the drinking resorts he knew, the only persons to be found therein were those who should have been somewhere else, or loafers and drunkards. But, while he hesitated, he decided that circumstances were different. In that community of rough men, cut off, almost, from all civilization and refinement, saloons were common meeting points.
“I’ll wait for you,” answered Roy, stepping just inside the door. Instantly he was sorry he had done so. The place was aglow with light from a half dozen oil chandeliers; the air was heavy with tobacco smoke and odors from the sloppy bar, and the room was well filled with men. Almost tempted to return to the street, for his companion at once hurried toward the bar, Roy was held for a moment by the fascinating picture afforded by the occupants of the place.
Above all rose the clink of spurs. Here at last was the “real thing.” Almost lost in the desert and hanging on the precipitous banks of the deep San Juan as if to prevent being swept away and buried in the sandy plains, the town of Bluff, the last echo of civilization, was the rendezvous of miner, prospector, cow puncher, sheep herder and outcast. And within Roy’s sight were examples of each.
Confused, bewildered, and wholly out of place, Roy attempted to withdraw. But something seemed to hold him—the silver bands on an Indian, the gaudy color of a cowboy’s handkerchief, the set angle of another’s hat and everywhere the oaths, the racy slang of the plains and the always present, swaying firearms. Here were the men of whom he had read, whose freedom—as a boy—he had often envied.
In the moment that Roy hesitated there was a familiar “E yawp!” and a half dozen answering yells. The boy knew at once that Sink Weston had found old friends. Then he made out Weston’s big, black, dust-covered hat making its way toward the bar in the midst of a group of white sombreros, and he turned and left. At the door, an arm intercepted him. He drew back somewhat alarmed. It was a man who had lunged forward from the end of the bar near the door.
“Fur the love o’ God, Kid, buy me a drink.”
The mumbling speaker was a man who might have been eighty years old. Age and whisky had wrecked him. An unkempt, white beard, covered a worn, red flannel shirt. His ragged boots, into which greasy pants were stuffed, were not those of a horseman, and his gnarled, trembling fingers fell on the boy’s arm like talons. His hair, dropping from under a limp, grease-banded, ragged hat, lay on his shoulders in yellow-white, knotted locks. Almost toothless, he repeated, huskily:
“Jist one, Kid, jist one!”
Roy was shocked, and attempted to pass on. But the man, almost in collapse, held to him and dragged himself to the walk outside.