Hilliard ordered his drink, sipped it leisurely, then wandered off to a near-by table. There he stood, watching the game. Not long after, he accepted an invitation and joined the players. From then till midnight he was oblivious of everything but the magic squares of pasteboard, the shifting pile of dirty silver at his elbow, the faces—vacant, clever, or rascally—of his opponents. But at about midnight, trouble came. For some time Hilliard had been subconsciously irritated by the divided attention of a player opposite to him across the table. This man, with a long, thin face, was constantly squinting past Cosme's shoulder, squinting and leering and stretching his great full-lipped mouth into a queer half-smile. At last, abruptly, the irritation came to consciousness and Cosme threw an angry glance over his own shoulder.
Beside the giant who had served him his drink a girl stood: a thin, straight girl in black and white who held herself so still that she seemed painted there against the mirror on the wall. Her hands rested on her slight hips, the fine, pointed, ringless fingers white against the black stuff of her dress. Her neck, too, was white and her face, the pure unpowdered whiteness of childhood. Her chin was lifted, her lips laid together, her eyes, brilliant and clear, of no definite color, looked through her surroundings. She was very young, not more than seventeen. The mere presence of a girl was startling enough. Barmaids are unknown to the experience of the average cowboy. But this girl was trebly startling. For her face was rare. It was not Western, not even American. It was a fine-drawn, finished, Old-World face, with long, arched eyebrows, large lids, shadowed eyes, nostrils a little pinched, a sad and tender mouth. It was a face whose lines might have followed the pencil of Botticelli—those little hollows in the cheeks, that slight exaggeration of the pointed chin, that silky, rippling brown hair. There was no touch of artifice; it was an unpainted young face; hair brushed and knotted simply; the very carriage of the body was alien; supple, unconscious, restrained.
Cosme Hilliard's look lasted for a minute. Returning to his opponent it met an ugly grimace. He flushed and the game went on.
But the incident had roused Hilliard's antagonism. He disliked that man with the grimacing mouth. He began to watch him. An hour or two later Cosme's thin, dark hand shot across the table and gripped the fellow's wrist.
"Caught you that time, you tin-horn," he said quietly.
Instantly, almost before the speech was out, the giant in the apron had hurled himself across the room and gripped the cheat, who stood, a hand arrested on its way to his pocket, snarling helplessly. But the other players, his fellow sheep-herders, fell away from Hilliard dangerously.
"No shootin'," said the giant harshly. "No shoot-in' in The Aura. It ain't allowed."
"No callin' names either," growled the prisoner. "Me and my friends would like to settle with the youthful stranger."
"Settle with him, then, but somewheres else. No fightin' in The Aura."
There was an acquiescent murmur from the other table and the sheep-herder gave in. He exchanged a look with his friends, and Carthy, seeing them disposed to return quietly to the game, left them and took up his usual position behind the bar. The barmaid moved a little closer to his elbow. Hilliard noticed that her eyes had widened in her pale face. He made a brief, contemptuous excuse to his opponents, settled his account with them, and strolled over to the bar. From Carthy he ordered another drink. He saw the girl's eyes studying the hand he put out for his glass and he smiled a little to himself. When she looked up he was ready with his golden eyes to catch her glance. Both pairs of eyes smiled. She came a step toward him.