"Your name Warren?" Tesno said, biting off the end of a cigar.
"This here is Hobo Hobson," Pinky said, setting a bottle of beer on the bar. "Hobo, meet Mr. Tesno."
"I figured this was him," Hobson said loudly. "He killed a friend of mine at Pend Oreille. Shot him in the back."
"Not so!" A high-pitched voice came from near the door, and Tesno saw that the little Irishman had stepped out from the crowd. "I was there. Ace Gandy was blazing away with a revolver when he died. Tesno took a slug in the leg before he even fired."
Someone pulled the man back. Hobson faced the bar as if to pick up his beer; instead, he swung at Tesno's head with a vicious backhanded blow. Tensed for something of the kind, Tesno stepped back. Hobson's hand missed its target but sent the cigar flying from Tesno's mouth.
"My fault," Tesno said mildly, giving the man room.
Hobson's grin was broader than ever. A shock of blond hair had fallen across his forehead, and he seemed more animal than man. A stand-up-and-swing, stomp-a-man-when-he's-down fighter, Tesno thought. A bear-hugger and an eye-gouger. But a man who depended on his own monstrous strength and fighting knowledge rather than on weapons. Not the sort to pull a knife or a Henry D.
"It seems this Tesno backs away from a fight when he ain't got a gun," Hobson said.
"Depends," Tesno said. He sent his glance over the crowd, which had coagulated into a half circle. In front of a faro table near the far wall, he spotted Madrid's barber-pole shirt. He raked a match across his rump and lighted another cigar.
"Who sent you?" he asked Hobson.