Apache Kid turned about and leant upon the counter. He sipped his cocktail with evident relish, and suddenly the door flew open. Those in the room were astonished, for the newcomer had in his grasp one of those heavy revolvers,—a Colt,—and he was three paces into the room and had his weapon levelled on Apache Kid before we had recovered from our surprise. "Well!" he cried, "I have you now!" and behind him in the doorway, the door being slightly ajar, I caught a glimpse of the man who had gone out so surreptitiously a few moments before. Apache Kid’s eyes were bright, but there seemed no fear on his face; I could see none. "You have me now," he said quietly. The man behind the gun, a tall fellow with close-cropped red hair, lowered his revolver hand. "I ’ve waited a while for this," he said. "Yes," said Apache Kid. "To me it is incomprehensible that a man’s memory should serve so long; but you have the drop on me." Here came a smile on his lips, and I had a suspicion that it was a forced smile; but to smile at all in such a pass I thought wonderful. "You have the drop on me, Jake,—in the language of the country." The man Jake lowered his hand wholly then. "You can come away with that old gag of yourn about the language o’ the country, and you right up against it like this? No, Apache Kid, I can’t—say!" he broke off, "are you heeled?" And I thought to myself: "In the language of the country that means, ’are you armed?’" "I am not," said Apache, lightly. The red-headed man—he looked like a cattleman, for he wore skin leggings over his trousers and spurs to his high-heeled boots—sent his revolver down with a jerk into the holster at his hip. "I can’t do it," he said. "You ’re too gritty a man for me to put out that way." There was a quick jingle of his spurs, and he was gone. A long sigh filled the room. "A gritty man, right enough," said one man near by. "A pair of gritty men, I ’m thinking." Apache Kid drained his glass, and I heard him say to the barman: "Well, he ’s no coward. A coward would have shot whenever he stepped in at the door, and given me no chance. And even if he had n’t done that," he continued, arguing the thing aloud, in a way I had already recognised as natural to him, as though he must scrutinise and diagnose everything, "even if he had made up his mind to let me off, he would have backed out behind his gun for fear of me. No, he ’s not a coward." "But you told him you were n’t heeled," said the barman. "Oh! But I might have been lying," said Apache Kid, and frowned. "He was n’t lying, I bet," said the man near me. "A cool man like that there don’t lie. It’s beneath him to lie." But Apache Kid did not seem to relish the gaze of the room, and turned his back on it and on me, leaning his elbows on the bar again and engaging in talk with the barman, who stood more erect now, I thought, and held his head higher, with the air of a man receiving some high honour.