"Take him out," commanded Lee with no explanation. Carson obeyed, jerking the now complaining Quinnion out hastily and unceremoniously. Lee followed as Steve threw open the barroom door.
"It's a new one on me, just the same," said Carson dryly as he watched Lee stoop and gather Quinnion up in his arms. "After a little party like this one, I'm generally travelling on an' not stopping to pick flowers an' gather sooveneers! You ain't got cannibal blood in you, have you, Bud?"
While Carson was cudgelling his brains for the answer and Steve was making cautious examination of the card-room, Lee with his burden in his arms passed through the darkness lying at the rear of the saloon and out into the street. Carson followed to take care of a sortie should Steve and the rest not have had all they wanted for one night. He chuckled, remarking to himself that Bud Lee and Quinnion were the very picture of a young mother and her babe in arms.
Not until they again reached the Golden Spur did Lee's burden completely recover consciousness. Many a man on the street looked wonderingly after them, demanded to know "what was up," and, receiving no answer, swung in behind Carson.
In the Golden Spur the arrivals were greeted by a heavy silence. Sandy Weaver forgot to set out the drinks which had just been ordered by three men who, in their turn, forgot that they had ordered. Men at the tables playing cards put down their hands and rose or turned expectantly in their seats.
Lee put Quinnion down on the floor. The man lay there a moment blinking at the lights above him and at the faces around him. At length his eyes came to Lee.
"Damn you," he muttered, trying to rise, and slowly getting to his feet with the aid of a chair, "I'll get you——"
Then Bud Lee gave his brief explanation, cutting Quinnion's ugly snarl in two.
"This is Quinnion's farewell party," he said bluntly. "He is a liar and a crook and an undesirable citizen. I have told him all that before. He took it upon himself to say about town that I am all of those things which he is himself. I have damn near killed him for it; I am going to give him ten minutes to get out of town. If he doesn't do it, I am going to kill him. And in that ten minutes he is going to find time to eat his words."
"I'll see you in—" began Quinnion, as something of the old bluster came back to him.