At the door below he glared up and down the street. There was nothing to see but a light buggy which rolled noiselessly through the dust. A dog detached itself from behind the vehicle and came to bark furiously at his feet. The kicking muscles in Connor's leg began to twitch, but a voice shouted and the mongrel trotted away, growling a challenge over its shoulder. The silence fell once more. He turned and strode back to the desk of the hotel, behind which Jack Townsend sat tilted back in his chair reading a newspaper.
"What's doing in this town of yours to-night?" he asked.
The proprietor moistened a fat thumb to turn the page and looked over his glasses at Connor.
"Appears to me there ain't much stirrin' about," he said. "Except for the movies down the street. You see, everybody's there."
"Movies," muttered Connor under his breath, and looked savagely around him.
What his eyes fell on was a picture of an old, old man on the wall, and the rusted stove which stood in the center of the room with a pipe zigzagging uncertainly toward the ceiling. Everything was out of order, broken down—like himself.
"Looks to me like you're kind of off your feet," said Jack Townsend, and he laid down his paper and looked wistfully at his guest. He made up his mind. "If you're kind of dry for a drink," he said, "I might rustle you a flask of red-eye—"
"Whisky?" echoed Connor, and moistened his lips. Then he shook his head. "Not that."
He went back to the door with steps so long and heavy that Jack Townsend rose from his chair, and spreading his hands on the desk, peered after the muscular figure.
"That gent is a bad hombre," pronounced Jack to himself. He sat down again with a sigh, and added: "Maybe."