"'Bout a month altogether, but not here in Haskell all that time. When did you leave New York?"
"Oh, more than a week ago," she lied gracefully.
He stroked his moustache.
"Then I suppose you haven't much late New York news? Nothing startling, I mean?"
"No; only what has been reported in the Western papers. I do not recall anything particularly interesting." She dropped her eyes to her plate and busied herself with a piece of tough beef. "The usual murders, of course, and things of that kind."
There was a moment's silence, then the man laughed as though slightly ill at ease.
"These fellows out here think they are a pretty tough lot," he said grimly, "but there are plenty of boys back on the East Side who could show them a few tricks. You know that part of the old town?"
"Not very well," she admitted with apparent regret, "but of course I read a good bit about it in the papers—the desperate characters, gunmen, and all those the police have so much trouble with. Are those stories really true?"
"There ain't a third of them ever told," and he leaned forward, quite at his ease again. "I have some business interests down that way, and so hear a good deal of what is going on at first hand. A New York gunman is so much worse than these amateurs out here there ain't no comparison. Why, I know a case——"
He stopped suddenly and took a sip of coffee.