ssion
of interest had fled from his placid face. "Come in right away, eh?
Hello, Carson. Have somethin'; on me, you know."

Lee shook his head.

"Not to-night, Sandy," he said. "Thanks just the same."

"Me," grinned Carson, "I'll go you, Sandy. Same thing--you know."

Sandy shoved out whiskey-bottle and glass. Then he turned grave eyes
to Lee.

"One of these fellers can tend bar while we talk if you want, Bud," he
offered.

"You say Quinnion has been talking?" asked Lee.

"Yes. Considerable. All afternoon an' evening, I guess. I didn't
hear him until I called you up."

"Then," continued the man from Blue Lake ranch, "I don't see any call
for you and me to whisper, Sandy. What did he say?"

"Said you was a liar, Bud. An' a skeerd-o-your-life damn bluff."

A faint, shadowy smile touched Lee's eyes.

"Just joshing, Sandy. But that wasn't all, was it?"

"No," said Sandy, wiping his bar carefully. "There was the other word,
Bud. An'--say, Billy, tell him what Quinnion had to say down to the
Jailbird."

Lee turned his eyes to Billy Young. Young, a cattleman from the Up and
Down range, shifted his belt and looked uncomfortable.

"Damn if I do!" he blurted out. "It ain't none of my funeral. An' if
you ask me, I don't like the sound of that kind of talk in my mouth.
Maybe I can't find my way to church of a Sunday for staggerin' with
red-eye, but I ain't ever drug a nice girl's name into a barroom."

"So," said Lee very quietly, "that's it, is it?"

"Yes," said Sandy Weaver slowly, "that's it, Bud. Us boys knowed ol'
Luke Sanford an' liked him. Some of us even knowed his girl. All of
us know the sort she is. When Quinnion started his talk--oh, it's a
song an' dance about you an' her all alone in some damn cabin, trying
to crawl out'n the looks of things by accusin' Quinnion of tryin' to
shoot you up!--well, folks jus' laughed at him. More recent, somebody
must have took him serious an' smashed him in the mouth. He looks like
it. But," and Sandy shrugged his thick shoulders elaborately, "if it's
up to anybody it's up to you."

For a moment Bud Lee, standing very straight, his hat far back, his
eyes hard and cold, looked from one to another of the men about him.
In every face he saw the same thing; their contempt for a man like
Quinnion, their wordless agreement with Sandy that it "was up to Bud
Lee." Lee's face told them nothing.

"Where is he?" he asked presently.

"Mos' likely dow