"From anywhere but here,"
"Meanin' that you're here to stay?"
"Meanin' that I'm here to stay."
"Even if I tell you to git out of the country?"
"You won't be alive to tell me unless you talk right sudden."
They watched each other, the man and the boy. Neither as yet made any motion to draw his gun, the younger one because he was not ready, Roush because he did not want to show any premature alarm before the men taking in the scene. Nor could he yet convince himself, in spite of the challenge that rang in the words of the boy, of serious danger from so unlikely a source.
Dave Roush had been watching the boy closely. A likeness to someone whom he could not place stirred faintly his memory.
"Who are you? What's yore name?" he snapped out.
The boy had risen from the chair. His hand rested on his hip as if casually. But Dave had observed the sureness of his motions and he accepted nothing as of chance. The experience of Roush was that a gunman lives longer if he is cautious. His fingers closed on the butt of the revolver at his side.
"My name is James Clanton."