"I didn't quite gather what you said?" he remarked courteously, and leaned across the bar—within striking distance.
"I'll tell you later," remarked Haw-Haw sullenly, and turned his shoulder to the bar.
As he did so two comparatively recent arrivals came up beside him. They were fresh from a couple of months of range-finding, and they had been quenching a concentrated thirst by concentrated effort. Haw-Haw Langley looked them over, sighed with relief, and then instantly produced Durham and the brown papers. He paused in the midst of rolling his cigarette and offered them to the nearest fellow.
"Smoke?" he asked.
Now a man of the mountain-desert knows a great many things, but he does not know how to refuse. The proffer of a gift embarrasses him, but he knows no way of avoiding it; also he never rests easy until he has made some return.
"Sure," said the man, and gathered in the tobacco and papers. "Thanks!"
He covertly dropped the cigarette which he had just lighted, and stepped on it, then he rolled another from Haw-Haw's materials. The while, he kept an uneasy eye on his new companion.
"Drinkin'?" he asked at length.
"Not jest now," said Haw-Haw carelessly.
"Always got room for another," protested the other, still more in earnest as he saw his chance of a return disappearing.