"I'm going to ask you a string of questions, Thornton. We haven't over much time and any way there wouldn't be any use now in my stopping to explain just what I'm driving at and why I want to know this and that. If you'll just answer what I ask…"
"Fire away."
For a little they smoked on in silence, Two-Hand Billy Comstock's expression suggesting that he was planning precisely the course his inquiries were to take before beginning.
"Let's start in this way!" he said at last. "What men around here do you know real well, well enough to call friends?"
"I've been here only a year," Thornton told him. "I don't know many men here real well. Friends? Outside Bud King and the boys working for me I don't know any I'd call friend."
"Then," placidly suggested, "how about enemies? A man can make a good many enemies in a year and not half try."
"If you'll change that to men I know pretty well and don't like, and who don't like me, I can name a name or two."
"Let's have 'em."
"There's Henry Pollard, to begin with."
"The man you're buying from. First, how old a man is he and what does he look like? Next, what do you know about him?"