Dailey looked down the list and then up at Johnny. He was asking Fate why Nelson had to pick that particular time to visit the store. Johnny was smiling, but there was a look in his eyes which made the storekeeper do some quick thinking. He had no orders not to sell to anyone but the SV; and if Big Tom became curious he could put his questions to the two-gun man and get what satisfaction he could. In his heart he was in sympathy with the SV, and he had argued against refusing to sell to it. "Nelson," said Dailey, slowly going behind the counter, "It's a good thing you remembered about that stuff. Are you takin' it to th' hotel?" "Reckon not," answered Johnny. "Reckon I'll borrow Charley's pack hoss an' him to take it off to a place I knows of, where there ain't no mice. You'd be surprised, Ben, if you knowed how many mice there are in that hotel." Charley looked from one to the other and, not knowing what to think or say, grinned somewhat anxiously. "How's yore dad, an' yore sister?" Johnny asked him. "All right," answered Charley. "But they was scared half to death yesterday when you an' them fellers came tearin' in, 'specially when you started shooting. You was awful drunk, wasn't you?" "I don't remember much about it," confessed Johnny, "so I reckon mebby I was. We all got lost an' had to sleep out in th' brush all night. We was after th' coyote what kidnapped th' Doc, but we couldn't find him." Dailey forgot to continue filling the list. He was holding a sack of sugar in his hand and drinking in every word. Johnny turned to him. "Say, Ben," he said, "did I ever tell you th' story about Damsight?" "You never did," answered the storekeeper, "not if my mem'ry ain't playin' me false again." "It was scandalous," began Johnny, drumming with fingers on the butt of a gun. "There was a bunch of hoss thieves fightin' a lone woman an' her crippled dad. An' what do you reckon th' men in Damsight did about it? Nothin'. Nothin' at all. They was so miserable, so coyote-livered, so scared to death that they didn't raise a finger. No, sir; there wasn't a _man_ in th' town. They were just yellow dogs, runnin' around in men's clothes an' pertendin' they was humans--a lot of yellow dogs, an' not a cussed thing more." Dailey bungled a knot, and swore under his breath.