Minutes later he was lounging heavily against the rough planked counter of Abe Risdon's store. He was talking to the suttler over a deep "four-fingers" of neat Rye, while his searching eyes scanned the body of the ill-lit room. The place was usually crowded with drinkers when the daylight passed, but just now it was almost empty.
"Who's that guy in the tweed pea-jacket an' looks like a city man?" he asked his host in an undertone, pointing at one of the tables where a stranger sat surrounded by four of the forest men.
Abe's powerful arms were folded as he leant on the counter.
"Blew in about noon," he said. "Filled his belly with good hash an' sat around since."
"He's a bunch o' the boys about him now, anyway. An' I guess he's talking quite a lot, an' they're doing most o' the listening. Seems like he's mostly enjoying hisself."
Abe shrugged. But the glance he flung at the man sitting at the far-off table was without approval.
"It's mostly that way now," he said, with an air of indifference his thoughtful eyes denied. "There's too many guys come along an' sell truck, an' set around, an' talk, an' then pass along. Things are changing around this lay out, an' I don't get its meanin'. Time was I had a bunch of boys ready most all the time to hand me the news going round. Time was you'd see a stranger once in a month come along in an' buy our food. Time was they mostly had faces we knew by heart, and we knew their business, and where they came from. Tain't that way now. You couldn't open the boys' faces fer news of the forest with a can-opener. These darn guys are always about now. They come, an' feed the boys' drink, an' talk with 'em most all the time. An' they're mostly strangers, an' the boys mostly sit around with their faces open like fool men listenin' to fairy tales. How's the cut goin'?"
Porson laughed. There was no light in his hard eyes.
"At a gait you couldn't change with a trail whip."
The other nodded.