e stuff from Doc an' find out how
much is a dost, an' you kin' slip it in his booze."

As the cowpuncher disappeared through the door, Cinnabar Joe's eyes
narrowed. "You damn skunk!" he muttered, biting viciously upon the
stump of his cigar. "If you was drinkin' anything I'd switch glasses
on _you_, an' then shoot it out with you when you come to. From now on
it's you or me. You've got your hooks into me an' this is only the
beginnin'." The man stopped abruptly and stared for a long time at the
stove-pipe hole in the opposite wall. Then, turning, he studied his
reflection in the mirror behind the bottles and glasses. He tossed
away his cigar, straightened his necktie, and surveyed himself from a
new angle.

"This here Tex, now," he mused. "He sure is a rantankerous cuss when
he's lickered up. He'd jest as soon ride his horse through that door
as he would to walk through, an' he's always puttin' somethin' over on
someone. But he's a man. He'd go through hell an' high water fer a
friend. He was the only one of the whole outfit had the guts to tend
Jimmy Trimble when he got the spotted fever--nursed him back to good as
ever, too, after the Doc had him billed through fer yonder." Cinnabar
Joe turned and brought his fist down on the bar. "I'll do it!" he
gritted. "Purdy'll think Tex switched the drinks on me. Only I hope
he wasn't lyin' about that there stuff. Anyways, even if he was, it's
one of them things a man's got to do. An' I'll rest a whole lot easier
in my six by two than what I would if I give Tex the long good-bye
first." Unconsciously, the man began to croon the dismal wail of the
plains:

"O bury me not on the lone praire-e-e
In a narrow grave six foot by three,
Where the buzzard waits and the wind blows free,
Then bury me not on the lone praire-e-e.

Yes, we buried him there on the lone praire-e-e
Where the owl all night hoots mournfulle-e-e
And the blizzard beats and the wind blows free
O'er his lonely grave on the lone praire-e-e.

And the cowboys now as they roam the plain"----

"Hey, choke off on that!" growled Purdy as he advanced with rattling
spurs. "Puts me in mind of _him_--back there in Big Dry. 'Spose I ort
to buried him, but it don't make no difference, now." He passed a
small phial across the bar. "Fifteen or twenty drops," he said
laconically, and laughed. "Nothin' like keepin' yer eyes an' ears
open. Doc kicked like a steer first, but he see