"Them's the words I like to hear," observed the landlord, slapping bottle and glasses on the bar. "Yuh can't pull out too quick to suit me, Block. I know about yore goin's-on down in Farewell—rubbin' out harmless strangers. Yuh may be a sheriff an' all that, but yore office don't travel a foot in Sunset County."
"Yuh talk big," growled Block. "Yuh needn't think yuh can bluff me. If I feel like takin' this town apart, I'll do it."
"Shore, just like yuh took the Bend apart. Got the molasses out o' yore system yet?"
Block's eyes were fairly murderous. The landlord grinned.
"That shotgun's double-barrelled," he observed. "Buckshot in each barrel."
Block gulped his whisky. The scratch-faced man had finished his drink and was placidly rolling a cigarette.
"Never did like to quarrel," he remarked, "special not with a shotgun. Mister"—to the landlord—"have any gents from the Bend rode in to-day—or yesterday?"
"Lookin' for friends?" queried the landlord.
"Shore!"
"I thought so. Well, I can't tell yuh. Yuh see, I ain't right well acquainted hereabouts. I dunno everybody. There might somebody 'a' come through, an' then again there mightn't. I seed a Injun yest'day, though. Looked like a Digger. Might he be yore partic'lar friend?" An exquisite solicitude was in the landlord's tone.