But the next comer proved to be not merely one of their own ilk, but likewise to have only one arm. So forbidding of aspect was he that greetings consisted of no more than grunts. Huge-boned, tall, gaunt to cadaverousness, his face a dirty death’s head, he was as repellent a nightmare of old age as ever Doré imagined. His toothless, thin-lipped mouth was a cruel and bitter slash under a great curved nose that almost met the chin and that was like a buzzard’s beak. His one hand, lean and crooked, was a talon. The beady grey eyes, unblinking and unwavering, were bitter as death, as bleak as absolute zero and as merciless. His presence was a chill, and Whiskers and Fatty instinctively drew together for protection against the unguessed threat of him. Watching his chance, privily, Whiskers snuggled a chunk of rock several pounds in weigh close to his hand if need for action should arise. Fatty duplicated the performance. Then both sat licking their lips, guiltily embarrassed, while the unblinking eyes of the terrible one bored into them, now into one, now into another, and then down at the rock-chunks of their preparedness. “Huh!” sneered the terrible one, with such dreadfulness of menace as to cause Whiskers and Fatty involuntarily to close their hands down on their cave-man’s weapons. “Huh!” the other repeated, reaching his one talon into his side coat pocket with swift definiteness. “A hell of a chance you two cheap bums ’d have with me.” The talon emerged, clutching ready for action a six-pound iron quoit. “We ain’t lookin’ for trouble, Slim,” Fatty quavered. “Who in hell are you to call me ‘Slim’?” came the snarling answer. “Me? I’m just Fatty, an’ seein’ ’s I never seen you before—” “An’ I suppose that’s Whiskers, there, with the gay an’ festive lamp tan-going into his eyebrow an’ the God-forgive-us nose joy-riding all over his mug?” “It’ll do, it’ll do,” Whiskers muttered uncomfortably. “One monica’s as good as another, I find, at my time of life. And everybody hands it out to me anyway. And I need an umbrella when it rains to keep from getting drowned, an’ all the rest of it.” “I ain’t used to company—don’t like it,” Slim growled. “So if you guys want to stick around, mind your step, that’s all, mind your step.” He fished from his pocket a cigar stump, self-evidently shot from the gutter, and prepared to put it in his mouth to chew. Then he changed his mind, glared at his companions savagely, and unrolled his bundle. Appeared in his hand a druggist’s bottle of alki. “Well,” he snarled, “I suppose I gotta give you cheap skates a drink when I ain’t got more’n enough for a good petrification for myself.” Almost a softening flicker of light was imminent in his withered face as he beheld the others proudly lift their hats and exhibit their own supplies. “Here’s some water for the mixin’s,” Whiskers said, proffering his tomato-can of river slush. “Stockyards just above,” he added apologetically. “But they say—”