"That's right." He brought out his paper and tobacco, making his cigarette slowly, his eyes alone asking the other his business.
"I want a little talk with you, Mr. Thornton. But maybe I'd better wait until you've eaten?"
"Had my supper an hour ago," Thornton replied. "Made camp with the boys before I came in. Fire away, Stranger."
"All right. First thing, my name's Comstock."
The keen eyes which had measured the cowboy as he came through the door were very bright upon him now. Thornton nodded. The name meant nothing to him.
"Don't get me?" laughed Comstock. "Well, well, it's a shock to vanity, but after all one's fame is a poor crippled bird that doesn't fly far." He paused a moment, then added quietly, as though this other information might help his bird "to fly." "My stamping ground's New Mexico."
Thornton's look showed nothing beyond a faint curiosity; one would have said that he was as little interested in this man's stamping ground as in his name.
"One more try," laughed Comstock easily, "and I'll give up. Two-Hand
Billy Comstock…. Aha, I get you now!"
For now Buck Thornton started and his eyes did show interest and a sudden flash of surprise. For fifteen years Two-Hand Billy Comstock, United States Deputy Marshal, had been widely known throughout the great South-west, a man who asked no odds and gave no quarter, one whose name sent as chill a shiver through the hard hearts of the lawless as a sight of the gallows would have done. And this man, small, well dressed, quiet mannered, as dapper as a tailor's dummy….
"If you are Billy Comstock," grunted Thornton, "well, I'm damn' glad to know you, sir!"