THE HUNCH
The time was an evening in the first week in May; the place was the Arkansas Saloon in Willow Bend, Redstone County, the man was Billy Wingo, wearing a sevenweeks' beard and an air of preoccupation. He was draped against the bar, making rings on the bar top with the wet bottom of his whisky glass.
The weather was unseasonably warm, and the big double-burner reflector lamps in the saloon raised the bar-room temperature at least fifteen degrees. Billy felt the salty moisture running down into his eyes. He pushed back his hat and with a fillip of his fingers slatted off the perspiration.
He did not see a man at the other end of the bar look up at his sudden movement. Nor, when he departed after his second glass, did he know that the other man was following until he had passed out into the street. Then, with that sixth sense men who carry their lives in their holsters so frequently develop, he knew it. Hence, quite naturally, instead of going directly to the hotel hitching-rail where his horse was tied, he sauntered with apparent aimlessness round the corner of the saloon, along the blank side wall and round the next corner.
In the darkness behind this corner, gun in hand, he waited. The other man slid round the corner in his wake and ran plump into the muzzle of the Wingo six-shooter.
"Were you looking for me?" Bill asked in a low tone.
The man, having shown that he was no shorthorn by promptly throwing up his hands, laughed low. "I was looking for you," he said, still chuckling, "but not the way you mean."
"Your voice sounds familiar," said the sceptical Billy. "Suppose you step over here into the light from this window. Keep your hands up."
"Glad to—both ways," agreed the man, obeying instantly. "Satisfied now?"
"You can put 'em down," said Billy sliding his gun back into the holster as soon as the light fell on the man's face. "I thought you went up to Jacksboro to visit your uncle."