He took some tobacco and rubbed it into his eyes to sting them open. Now and then he took a drink from the jug. Not as big a drink as he wanted. Just enough to keep a man alive. That grub made a man sleepy. A paunch full of meat always made a man sleepy. Almighty hard luck that a man couldn’t git off and lay down. For five minutes. Yeah. Five hours. Be froze stiff as a stick. Hadn’t he froze his feet thataway? Wouldn’t he a-died there only Pete come by? Hell, he was payin’ Pete back right now. A man paid his debts thataway. Took guts, too. But when a man’s got one friend on earth, he’d be a hell of a kind of man not to lend a hand. It took guts. Somethin’ Pete didn’t have. Pete was a chicken hearted cuss. With his wife and his fiddle. Never taken a chance. Never would get nowhere. Like a cow pasture. A muley cow. Well, no man had ever sawed Sam Graybull’s horns. No fence made ever held him. No jail, neither. Never bin ketched. Them as tried it had some hard luck. Have a drink. Damn that cork. A man’s hands stiff and numb. There she comes. Good whisky. Thawed a man’s belly. Fightin’ whisky. Sam Graybull’s laugh grated on the silence of the winter night. There’d be fightin’ a-plenty if a man run into that fool posse. Sam took a beaded buckskin pouch and put into it the note to the doctor. Then he fastened the pouch around his neck outside his coat. He moved with a dogged, sluggish precision. Like a machine that needs oil. He lost one of his mittens. The right mitten. He put the other mitten on his right hand, leaving the left one bare. Sam Graybull’s right hand was his gun hand. Out of the hills and onto the main road to town. Daylight now. Sleepy. Dozing in the saddle. Ridin’ that horse like he owned him. Payin’ off the only debt he owed to his only friend. Yonder was Beaver Crick. Old gray wolf a-comin’ outa the bare willers. With a belly full of meat, headin’ fer a safe place to sleep it off. Sam never killed a wolf. Hell, he was a wolf, hisself. A he-wolf. A killer. No rabbit, like Pete Peralta. Pete, whinin’ over a busted laig. What’d he do if he had a .30-.40 slug in him and had to gouge it out with a jacknife? Sam Graybull had done that. What’s a-comin’ yonder? Horsebackers. A dozen er more. Posse men. Time fer a drink. A big’n this time. No nibble. Bin holdin’ off. Waitin’. “Here’s lookin’ at you boys!” Sam Graybull’s hoarse voice carried a note of triumph. “Here’s lookin’ at you acrost gun sights!” And he left the fiery stuff gurgle down his throat. A rifle bullet whined past Sam Graybull’s head. He taunted the marksman with a yell of derision and, tossing aside the jug, jerked his carbine and rode at a run straight for the men.