"How about a little game, gents?" suggested Archer.
In a flash Loudon saw again the barroom of the Happy Heart and the Sheriff of Sunset County surrounded by Block's friends. The wolf-faced man had employed almost those very words. Loudon smiled cheerfully.
"Why, shore," he said, "I'm with yuh. I left my coin upstairs. I'll be right down."
He hurried up to his room, closed the door, and set his back against it. Drawing his six-shooter he flipped out the cylinder. No circle of brass heads and copper primers met his eye. His weapon had been unloaded.
"Fell plumb into it," he muttered without exultation. "The —— murderers!"
He tried the action. Nothing wrong there. Only the cartridges had been juggled. He reloaded hastily from a fresh box of cartridges. He would not trust those in his belt. Heaven only knew how far ahead the gentleman who tampered with his gun had looked.
When Loudon returned to the barroom, Laguerre and the other two men were sitting at a battered little table. The vacant chair was opposite Archer's lanky friend, and the man sitting in that chair would have his back to the door.
"I don't like to sit with my back to the door," stated Loudon.
"Some don't," said the lanky man, shuffling the cards.
"Meanin'?" Loudon cocked an inquisitive eyebrow.