r the
furrows of the rugged face. "You wouldn't dast shoot, unless perhaps it
was a woman, you coward!"

For a fraction of a minute there was silence, while over the visage of
the challenged there flashed, faded, recurred the expression we pay good
dollars to watch playing upon the features of an accomplished actor;
then the yellow streak beneath the bravado showed, and the menacing hand
dropped to the holster at the hip. Once again Kennedy, who seldom made a
mistake, had sized his man correctly.

"What do I owe you altogether, Mick?" asked a changed and subdued voice.
"Make it as easy as you can."

Kennedy relaxed into his lounging position.

"Thirty-five dollars. We'll call it thirty. You've been setting them up
to everybody here for a week on your face."

"Can't you give me just a little more credit, Mick?" An expression meant
to be a smile formed upon the haggard face. "Just for old time's sake?
You know I've always been a good customer of yours, Kennedy."

"Not a cent."

"But I've got to have liquor!" One hand, ill-kept, but long of fingers
and refined of shape, steadied the speaker. "I can't get along without
it!"

"Sell something, then, and pay up."

The man thought a moment and shook his head.

"I haven't anything to sell; you know that. It's the wrong time of the
year." He paused, and the travesty of a smile reappeared. "Next
Winter--"

"You've got a horse outside."

For an instant Blair's gaunt face darkened at the insult; he grew almost
dignified; but the drink curse had too strong a grip upon him and the
odor of whiskey was in the air.

"Yes, I've a good horse," he said slowly. "What'll you give for him?"

"Seventy dollars."

"He's a good horse, worth a hundred."

"I'm glad of that, but I'm not dealing in horses. I make the offer just
to oblige you. Besides, as you said, it's an off season."

"You won't give me more?"

"No."

Blair looked impotently about the room, but his former companions had
returned to their game. Filling in the silence, the dull clatter of
chips mingled with the drunken snores of the man on the floor.

"Very well, give me forty," he said at last.

"You accept, do you?"

"Yes."

"All right."

Blair waited a moment. "Aren't you going to give me what's coming?" he
asked.

Slowly the single eye fixed him as before.

"I didn't know you had anything coming."

"Why, you just said forty dollars!"

There was no relenting in Kennedy's face.

"You owe that