“Come across,” he said hospitably, “an’ have one on me. Anythin’ you say, Mr. Whitcomb.” “Something cold, if you have it,” David directed the bartender”—and bitter. No, no! not too much of that. Fill it up with water.” He drank thirstily and set down the glass, lifting his eyes to look out of the window at a passing vehicle. “That’s the Hon’rable S. Jarvis, _Es_quire,” pronounced his host, sucking his lips over the contents of his own glass. “Warm man, Jarvis.” “By that you mean?” queried David, strolling toward the door. “He’s got the rocks, Jarvis has; but my! ain’t he the screechin’ limit? I’ll bet you——” Mr. Sutton waddled heavily after David, and seated himself comfortably in one of the big splint-bottomed chairs ranged along the piazza for the convenience of patrons. “I’ll bet you,” he concluded, “he’s got half a million salted down, if he’s got a penny.” “Is there a decent horse in the stable?” inquired David, after a silence, which Mr. Sutton filled in with various animal-like noises, expressive of his entire physical comfort. “No; but I c’n git y’ one over to the livery stable. I’ll send over for it, if you say so,” Mr. Sutton responded. “I want to find Bellows,” David said. “Who? The auctioneer? Wall, y’ don’t need no livery hoss t’ locate Thomas. He’s over t’ Henry Maclin’s this mornin’, sellin’ out the stock. Hank’s concluded to go west. Thinks there’s more doin’ out there. But I dunno ’bout that. You mus’ know somethin’ ’bout the West?” David was smoking a second cigarette with short, impatient puffs. “I’ve been there,” he admitted, with a transient scowl. “How’d you like it?” asked Mr. Sutton, folding his pudgy hands across his protuberant front. “What sort of a place is it? Gamblers—heh? Cowboys, shootin’ parties, sage brush, prairie fires, etcetery—heh?” “You’ve named the principal features of the great West,” drawled David. “It’s all there, more particularly the et cetera. There’s lots of that roaming about.” He pulled his hat over his eyes and stepped down from the veranda. “I may not be back to dinner,” he said, “but I’d like a decent steak for supper, if you can get it in this centre of civilization.” Mr. Sutton watched the young man’s muscular figure in its leisurely progress down the street. Then he went back to the barroom, where his underling, a slim, sallow young man, with oily black hair parted very particularly in the middle of his narrow head, was languidly arranging clean glasses on a tray. “He’s hot stuff, ain’t he?” observed the bartender. “Who?—Whitcomb?” “Thinks he’s the whole thing, don’t he?” Mr. Sutton frowned. “I ain’t made up my mind ’bout that young feller,” he said ponderously. “But I’m kind of watchin’ him. It strikes me he’ll bear—watchin’.”