"I guess it is, Billy. Have a cigar?"

Corliss flung out of the office and tramped across to the saloon. He
called for whiskey and, seating himself at one of the tables, drank
steadily. Fadeaway wasn't such a fool, after all. But robbery! Was
it robbery? Eighteen hundred dollars would mean San Francisco . . .
Corliss closed his eyes. Out of the red mist of remembrance a girl's
face appeared. The heavy-lidded eyes and vivid lips smiled. Then
other faces, and the sound of music and laughter. He nodded to them
and raised his glass. . . . As the raw whiskey touched his lips the
red mist swirled away. The dingy interior of the saloon, the booted
and belted riders, the grimy floor littered with cigarette-ends, the
hanging oil-lamp with its blackened chimney, flashed up and spread
before him like the speeding film of a picture, stationary upon the
screen of his vision, yet trembling toward a change of scene. A blur
appeared in the doorway. In the nightmare of his intoxication he
welcomed the change. Why didn't some one say something or do
something? And the figure that had appeared, why should it pause and
speak to one of the men at the bar, and not come at once to him. They
were laughing. He grew silently furious. Why should they laugh and
talk and keep him waiting? He knew who had come in. Of course he
knew! Did Fadeaway think to hide himself behind the man at the bar?
Then Fadeaway should not wear chaps with silver conchas that glittered
and gleamed as he shifted his leg and turned his back. "Said he was my
friend," mumbled Corliss. "My friend! Huh!" Was it a friend that
would leave him sitting there, alone?

He rose and lurched to the bar. Some one steadied him as he swayed.
He stiffened and struck the man in the face. He felt himself jerked