When they had all gone out, most of them shouting good-natured farewells, he turned savagely on the pale-faced Mudge. The native cruelty of the man blazed forth. He scored the barkeeper with a tongue that lashed like a whip, vituperating, crushing with the weight of his sarcasm, frightening with the vividness of his threats. Mudge shrank back into the corner of the space behind the bar, spreading his arms along either side, watching the half-breed with wide-open fascinated eyes, as one would watch a dangerous wild beast. After a little the storm passed. Lafond asked in surly tones where the bunk was. Frosty showed him his own, behind the saloon, in a little shack of hewn timbers. Without a word Lafond turned in, dressed as he was, and closed his eyes. For a time he ruminated slowly. He had seen his man, and already he could put his finger on one weak point in Billy's personality--love of the spectacular, of bombast. A blow to his vanity would hurt. The half-breed had also taken fair measure of most of the other men in the room. He knew how to ingratiate himself, and his bold move in the case of Cheyenne Harry had had that object directly in view. He did not as yet see clearly just what form his blow to Billy's vanity was to take, but that would come with time. Lafond's calling and his position in the new town gave him unlimited opportunities for observation, and he was in no hurry. After waiting fifteen years, another twelvemonth would not matter. "Go slow," said Black Mike to himself. His doze was abruptly broken by Frosty's scared voice asking a question. The barkeeper's thick wits could not take in the situation. He was frightened almost out of his senses, and incapable of consecutive thought. "And where shall I sleep, sir?" he asked stupidly in a timid little voice. Mike turned over explosively. "You can sleep in hell for all of me!" he shouted angrily. "Get out!" Frosty returned to the main room of the saloon. There he spread a horse blanket, redolent of the stables, on the floor behind the stove. After a time Peter lay down beside him. The barkeeper, frightened, stupid, vaguely nervous, in his slow nerveless way, gathered the strange intelligent dog to him, and the two slept. The men took Harry to the creek, where he washed out his eyes. They had many comments to make, to none of which Harry vouchsafed a reply. But his sulkiness was gone. Suddenly he paused for a moment in his ablutions, and laughed. "Damned if they ain't a pair!" he asserted. "And that gal----" "She shore beats grass-widders and school-ma'ams!" said Old Mizzou. XVI AND GETS IT BACK AGAIN