"I heard you." The barkeeper spoke quietly but without the slightest
change of expression, even of the eye. "I heard you, but I'm not dealing
out drinks to deadbeats. Pay up, and I'll be glad to serve you."

Swift as thought Blair's hand went to his hip, and the rattle of
poker-chips sympathetically ceased. A second, and a big revolver was
trained fair at the dispenser of liquors.

"Curse you, Mick Kennedy!" muttered a choking voice, "when I order
drinks I want drinks. Dig up there, and be lively!"

The man by the speaker's side, surprised out of his intoxication, edged
away to a discreet distance; but even yet the Irishman made no move.
Only the single headlight shifted in its socket until it looked
unblinkingly into the blazing eyes of the gambler.

"Tom Blair," commanded an even voice, "Tom Blair, you white livered
bully, put up that gun!"

Slowly, very slowly, the speaker turned,--all but the terrible
Cyclopean eye,--and moved forward until his body leaned upon the bar,
his face protruding over it.

"Put up that gun, I tell you!" A smile almost fiendish broke over the
furrows of the rugged face. "You wouldn't dast shoot, unless perhaps it
was a woman, you coward!"

For a fraction of a minute there was silence, while over the visage of
the challenged there flashed, faded, recurred the expression we pay good
dollars to watch playing upon the features of an accomplished actor;