He turned to the crowd. “It happens that there ain't no officer o' the law in San Pasqual to-day to interfere in the forthcoming festivities between me an' O'Rourke. I do hope that none o' you boys'll feel called on to interfere. I take it for granted you won't, out o' compliment to me, an' as a further compliment I'd be obliged if you-all'd honor me to the extent o' havin' a little nip.”
The crowd shuffled to the bar, and a lanky prospector in from the dry diggings at Coolgardie spoke up.
“I'm a stranger here, but I'll help pull a rope tight around that mule-skinner's neck. It looks to me like a community job, an' if you say the word, friend, I'll head a movement to relieve you o' the resk o' cancelin' that entry.”
“Thank you, old-timer” replied Mr. Hennage kindly, “but this is a personal matter, an' it's been the custom in this town to let every man kill his own skunks. All set, boys. Smoke up!”
Each of his guests half turned, facing the gambler. As one man they spoke.
“How.”
“How” replied Harley P., and tossed off his wine with evident relish. He pocketed his change and left the saloon; five minutes later he was bending over a show-case in the hardware department of the general store, and when his purchase was completed he sat down on a keg of nails, laid his watch on the counter before him, lit a cigar and smoked until four o 'clock; then he arose.
He handed his watch to the proprietor.
“I'd be obliged if you was to give that watch to Dan Pennycook” he said, and walked out.
On the threshold he paused. A train, brown with the dust of the hundreds of miles of desert across which it had traveled, was just pulling in to the depot, and while Mr. Hennage realized that any delay in his programme would be a distinct strain on the idlers who had gathered in the porch of the Silver Dollar and adjacent deadfalls to watch the worst man in San Pasqual finally make good on his reputation, still he was not one of the presuming kind, and he declined to make a spectacle of himself for the edification of the travelers peering curiously from the windows of the train.