bartender's chin came down with a chug on the bar. Then he slumped
quietly to the floor behind the bar. The sixshooter relinquished by
his nerveless fingers remained on top of the bar between the whiskey
glasses.

Racey stared speculatively at the long man and the short man. They in
turn regarded him with something like respect. The long man wore a
drooping, streaky-yellow horseshoe of a moustache dominated by a long
and melancholy nose. Flanking the base of this sorrowful nose was a
pair of eyes hard and bright and the palest of blue.

The short man was a blobby-nosed creature, who sported a three days'
growth of red beard and a quid of chewing in the angle of a heavy jaw.
Now he revolved the tobacco with a furtive tongue and spat thickly
upon the floor.

Without removing his eyes from the two aforementioned gentlemen Racey
reached for the bartender's gun. "Hadn't oughta be trusted with
firearms," he observed, pleasantly, referring to what lay behind the
bar. "Too venturesome. Yeah."

He thoughtfully lowered the hammer of the sixshooter and rammed it
down to the trigger-guard behind the waistband of his trousers.

"Do you gents know anybody named Doc Coffin?" inquired Racey.

"I'm him," nodded the tall man, the pale eyes beginning to glitter.

"Then maybe you can tell me how Nebraska Jones is gettin' along?"