It was getting dark now. Black as a hat. Sam Graybull shrank into his buffalo coat and let his horse drift along. He rode good horses. Whenever Sam Graybull stole a horse he picked a good one. It was nearly a hundred miles into the Larb Hills where they dropped in timbered ridges to meet the Missouri River. To travel all night in a blizzard was only part of a man’s job. The same as killing those two bank dudes. And by evening tomorrow he would be at his cabin in the Bad Lands. “That keg’ll look good.” Sam Graybull liked whisky. He liked whisky like most men like women. Liked the color of it in a glass. Liked the gurgle of the stuff as it spilled out of a jug into a tin cup. Talk about music. The burn of it when a man tilted a jug and drank it thataway. God, fer a drink right now. But Sam Graybull dared not drink till he got home. Tried it onct. Fell off a horse and froze both feet sleepin’ in the snow. Peter Peralta was horse huntin’ and found him. Pete’s missus taken care of him. Pete wasn’t much of a hand to drink. A few shots and Pete had a-plenty. Just enough to make that fiddle talk good. “The Red River Jig” and “Hell Among the Yearling’s” and “Cross Eyed Moses.” ’Breed tunes. Sam hadn’t seen Pete and his missus since early last spring. They were the only friends he claimed. A man on the dodge can’t have many friends. Not when there’s a big bounty on his scalp. That’s the way most of the boys got theirs. Trustin’ somebody. Hell, them fool posses never got nowhere. Milled around. And when they followed Sam Graybull they kept bunched. Damn’ right they did. Sam had been in Wyoming all summer. Gamblin’ some amongst the sheep shearers. Gettin’ drunk and eatin’ good. Nobody the wiser. Who’d look around sheep camps fer a cow hand? Then he’d up and shot that Mexican shearer and had to drift back into Montana again. Too quick on the trigger. Sam’s rattling laugh broke forth again. He took out his .45 and with the nail file blade of his jacknife, he made two fresh notches on the gun’s bone handle. That was the Indian in him. Sam was about a quarter breed Sioux. He was proud of those notches. Six, all told, counting the two bank dudes. Not bad fer a man thirty-one. He’d tell Pete and his missus. Pete’d grin kinda silly. The missus’d just sit and shiver like she was took with a chill. Scairt of a man that had guts. A man that was quick on the trigger. * * * * * Into the black maw of the cañons and draws. Snow piling in till a man felt smothered. Black as a hat. Cold. Give a dollar fer a drink. Hell, give five dollars. Ten. There was money a-plenty in that sack. Whisky money.