Bud helped himself, and in response to Ju's "Your friend?" he called across to Jeff at the window. But Jeff shook his head, and the saloon-keeper was given an opportunity of studying his set features, and the premature lines he saw graven upon them. He withdrew the box and turned his attention to the more amenable Bud.
"It's a swell country down your ways," he observed cordially. Then he added, "You ain't been cussed with a gang o' toughs raidin' stock, neither, same as we have fer the last fi' years. But they're out. Oh, yes, they're sure out. Yes, siree, you guessed right. Ther's sure been some play around here. As neat a hangin' as I've see in thirty-five year tryin' to figger out the sort o' sense stewin' in the think tanks o' the crazy guys who live in cities an' make up po'try about grass. Mebbe you've heard all the play?"
Bud shook his head. He drank up his lager, and took the opportunity of glancing over his glass at Jeff's back. Then he set his glass down and ordered another bottle for both of them.
"No," he observed. "I ain't heard much. I heard there's been some hangin'. The Lightfoot gang, eh? Seems to me I've heard talk of 'em down our way. So you boys here got in on 'em?"
Ju set the two fresh bottles on the counter while Bud lit his cigar.
"That's so," he said with appreciation, and propped his folded arms upon the bar. "It sort o' come sudden, too." He smiled faintly. "It come as I said it would right here in this bar. The boys was settin' around sousing, an' pushin' round the cyards, an' the Vigilante Committee was settin' on a pow-wow. I was tellin' 'em ef the folks had the sense of a blind louse they'd dope out a reward, an' make it big. I guessed they'd get the gang quick that way. Y'see, it don't matter who it is, folks is all after dollars—if there's only enough of 'em. Life's jest made up of two sorts o' guys, the fellers with dollars an' them without. Wal, I guess it's a sort o' play goes right on all the time. You just raise hell around till you get 'em, the other fellers raise hell till you ain't. It's a sort o' give and take, though I reckon the taking seems to be the general scheme adopted. That's how it comes Lightfoot an' his gang got a nasty kink in most o' their necks. It's them dollars. Some wise guy around here jest took himself by the neck and squeezed out a present of ten thousand dollars to the feller who'd sell up Lightfoot's good-will an' business. What happened? Why, it took jest about twenty-four hours for the transaction to be put through. Say, ever hear tell of a time when ther' wa'an't some feller waiting ready to grab on to ten thousand dollars? No, sir. You never did. No, nor no one else, 'cep' he spent the whole of his life in the foolish house."
"Some one betrayed 'em—for ten thousand dollars?"
Bud's question came with a sharp edge to it.
"Don't guess 'betray's' the word, mister. It was jest a commercial transaction. You jest need to get a right understanding of them things. When I got something to sell, an' you're yearnin' to dope out the dollars for it—say ten thousand of 'em—why, I don't guess there's anything else to it but a straight business proposition."
"So you netted the ten thousand?" enquired Bud, in his simplest fashion.