“Who is he?” some one asked, and another raised a warning hand.
“Cyarful, ol’ man! He’s from Buck Hill. I’ve been t’ Buck Hill. Hit’s way yonder in the head of Snake Creek Bad Lands. My land’! I was glad the sun didn’t set on me up theh; yes, indeedy! He’s Rearin’ Bill—my lan’! Don’t ’tagonise ’im. He comes from a bad country!”
The hoarse, rumbling growling of the man thus identified came around the square in the middle of the street. Horses hitched along the rails turned their heads to look at the phenomenon going by, twitching their tails and snorting a little under their breaths. A dog ran out in the dark from the sidewalk, wagging its tail, yipping as it pranced. Rearing Bill turned and growled at the vagrant beast, and the dog stood on its hind legs in an enthusiastic invitation to come on and play!
Some one laughed in the gloom of a passageway between two saloons. Rearing Bill threw a bullet into that shadow insult and then slammed two shots which sent the dog squealing in creased terror the other way around the square. A man’s yell of alarm rose frantically from the passageway and the clatter of loose boards and the fall of a stack of booming empty kegs reverberated around.
“Woo-who-o!” Rearing Bill whooped, and the echoes returned from faces of Bad Land cliffs.
“Lawse, he c’n shore yell!” listeners said in low voices.
As the big fellow shambled nearer, the gamblers around the tables hesitated, the drinkers at the bars held their liquor poised, looking over their shoulders at the front doors; and those with nothing special to divide their attention withdrew to the rear or side entrances. The bartenders, who must perforce stay and take it, wiped their hands on their aprons, their fingers twiddling, all except Flat Face Dink of Squint Legere’s liquid annex. Flat Face Dink lifted the corner of his lips; then he gave the long, red, cherry wood bar an extra dry polish.
“My gracious!” the observing Tid Ricks whispered. “Dink don’t care f’r anybody in the world! He’s all nerve, Dink is! Come the devil himself and Flat Face’d say to him, ‘Name yer pisen, old boy—how’s hell t’day?’ He would, honest! I bet he would.”
A heavy footfall out in front of Legere’s shook the planks till they boomed and creaked. Rearing Bill of Big Buck Hill surged into the middle of the barroom. Tid Ricks shrank into a corner. Patrons along the bar watched anxiously through the mirror reflections. Flat Face Dink deliberately turned his back and stacked up a pyramid of glasses.
“I want pisen!” the newcomer declared, shambling toward the bar, where they gave him ten feet width according to his size, looks and actions.