“It did kinda break against yuh, Tex.”
“Kinda, ——! Well, see yuh later.”
Tex adjusted his hat and walked outside, while Neal went to his room at the back of the saloon, threw off his clothes and piled into bed. At the bar several cowboys added another drink to their already large collection and marveled at the size of Tex Alden’s losses.
“’F I lost that much, I’d have a —— of a time buyin’ any Christmas presents for m’ friends, next December,” said Johnny Grant, a diminutive cowboy from the AK ranch.
“There ain’t that much money,” declared “Eskimo” Swensen, two hundred pounds of authority on any subject, who also drew forty dollars per month from the AK. “It takes over sixteen years of steady work, without spendin’ a cent, to make that much money. Never let anybody tell yuh that there is any eight thousand in one lump sum.”
“And that statement carries my indorsement,” nodded the third hired man of the AK, “Oyster” Shell, a wry-necked, buck-toothed specimen of the genus cowboy, whose boot-heels were so badly run over on the outer sides that it was difficult for him to attain his full height.
“There has been that much,” argued Johnny. “I ’member one time when I had—”
“Eighty,” interrupted Oyster. “Yuh got so drunk you seen a coupla extra ciphers, Johnny. I feel m’self stretchin’ a point to let yuh have eighty.”
“I votes for eight,” declared Eskimo heavily.
“Eight thousand ain’t so awful much,” said “Doc” Painter, the bartender, who wore a curl on his forehead, and who was a human incense stick, reeking of violets.