The other was Greasy Jones, master of the gang of gunmen dominating the little American port at the head of the route to the Black Elk gold area.
Greasy Jones was medium-sized, thin and wiry, a rapier rather than a bludgeon. His face was artistic, almost delicate, the nose aquiline, the cheek bones prominent, the forehead high. His hands, spread out on the table before him, were long and thin, the kind of hands that are thoroughly at home on the keyboard of a piano. But his skin was too brown and rough for an artist's or musician's, his chin too prominent, his lips too thin and cruelly set, his strange eyes, under the overhanging brows, too hard and keen. The murderer overshadowed the dreamer in his face, his terrible hands were mobile only for the pulling of triggers.
"What d'you want to see me for?" the gangster repeated. "I'm a busy man—can't afford to waste time."
Welland threw a cigar-case on the table and poured out drinks from a convenient bottle.
"So you came, after all," he remarked coolly. "I doubted if you would."
The gangster pushed back his slouch hat and, leaning over, lit his cigar in the candle flame. The action revealed the heavy belt of ammunition he wore buckled over his dingy coat and his battery of revolvers.
"Well, I don't gen'lly pay no attention," he said, smiling, "to strangers that stops me on the street—unless to fill 'em full o' holes for their nerve. But I sized you up, Mister, as diff'runt. An' when you ast me where you could meet me for a talk, well—anyways, here I am."
"Good," said Welland. "Now, before we talk business, Mr. Jones—introductions! On my part, I mean. I don't need them from you."
"No, I guess not," the gangster agreed. "Everybody knows me an' my bunch in this here town, that's straight. Well, go ahead."
"Right. There you are."