The Texan and the Coloradoan looked at each other with steel-cold eyes. They measured each other in deadly silence, and while one might have counted twenty the shadow of death hovered over the room. Then Overstreet made his choice. The bragging had all been done by Gurley. He could save his face without putting up a fight.
"Funny how some folks are all blown up by a little luck," he sneered, and he followed his friend to the street.
"You got 'em buffaloed sure, Jack. Tell me how you do it," demanded Jumbo with a fat grin.
"I'm the law, Jumbo."
"Go tell that to the Mexicans, son. What do you reckon a killer like Overstreet cares for the law? He figured you might down him before he could gun you—didn't want to risk an even break with you."
The Ranger poured his untasted liquor into the spittoon and settled the bill. "Think I'll drop around to the Silver Dollar an' see if my birds have lit again."
At the Silver Dollar Jack found his friend the ex-Confederate doing business with another cattleman.
"I'd call that a sorry-lookin' lot, Winters," he was saying. "I know a jackpot bunch of cows when I see 'em. They look to me like they been fed on short grass an' shin-oak." His face lighted at sight of the Ranger. "Hello, brindle-haid! Didn't know you was in town."
The quick eye of the officer had swept over the place and found the two men he wanted sitting inconspicuously at a small table.
"I'm not here for long, Sam. Two genuwine blown-in-the-bottle bad-men are after my scalp. They're runnin' me outa town. Seen anything of 'em? They belong to the Dinsmore outfit."