ded, were
still in place. Light showed in windows where fly-specked useless
licenses were displayed. Back of the bars a melancholy array of
soda-water advertised lack of interest in soft drinks. The front rooms
held no loungers, but the click of chips and murmurs of talk came from
behind closed doors.

Sandy stopped outside the place labeled "Good Luck Pool Parlors. J.
Plimsoll, Prop." The line "Best Liquor and Cigars" was half smeared out.
He patted gently the butts of the two Colts in the holsters, whose ends
were tied down to the fringe ornaments of his chaps. Sam stroked his
ropey mustache and eased the gun at his hip. Sandy pushed open the door
and went in. A man was playing Canfield at a table in the deserted bar.
As the pair entered he looked up with a "Howdy, gents?" shoving back a
rickety table and chair noisily on the uneven floor. The inner door
swung silently as at a signal and Jim Plimsoll came out. He stiffened a
little at the sight of the Three Star men and then grinned at Sam.

"How was the last bottle, Soda-Water?" he asked. "You didn't have to
change your name with Prohibition, did you? Nor your habits."

"Main thing that's changed is the quality of yore booze--an' the price,
neither fo' the better," said Sam carelessly.

"We ain't drinkin' ter-night, Jim," said Sandy. "Dropped in to hev a
li'l' talk with you an' then take a buck at the tiger."

Plimsoll's eyes glittered.

"Said talk bein' private," continued Sandy.

Plimsoll threw a glance at the man who had been posted for lookout and
he left with a curious gaze that took in Sandy's guns.

"Sorry I was away from the ranch, time you called," said Sandy, sitting
with one leg thrown over the corner of the table. "Hope to be there nex'
time. I hear you-all claim to have an interest in Pat Casey's minin'
locations, his interest now bein' his daughter's?"

"That any of your business?"

"I aim to make it my business," replied Sandy.

For a moment the two men fought a pitched battle with their eyes. It was
a warfare that Sandy Bourke was an expert in. The steel of his glance
often saved him the lead in his cartridges. Jim Plimsoll was no fool to
wage uneven contest. He fancied he would have the advantage over Sandy
later, if the pair really meant to play faro--in his place.

"I grubstaked him for the Hopeful-Dynamite discovery," he said.

"Got any papeh showin' that? Witnessed."

"You know as well as I do that papers ain't often drawn on grub