the bottle towards him.

"Help yourself," said Gregg.

"This is on me, Vic."

"I most generally like to buy the first drink."

Pete Glass turned his head slowly, for indeed all his motions were
leisurely and one could not help wondering at the stories of his exploits,
the tales of his hair-trigger alertness. Perhaps these half legendary deeds
sent the thrill of uneasiness through Vic Gregg; perhaps it was owing to
the singular hazel eyes, with little splotches of red in them; very mild
eyes, but one could imagine anything about them. Otherwise there was
nothing exceptional in Glass, for he stood well under middle height, a
starved figure, with a sinewy crooked neck, as if bent on looking up to
taller men. His hair was sandy, his face tawny brown, his shirt a gray
blue, and every one knew his dusty roan horse; by nature, by temperament
and by personal selection he was suited to blend into a landscape of
sage-dotted plains or sand. Tireless as a lobo on the trail, swift as a
bobcat in fight, hunted men had been known to ride in and give themselves
up when they heard that Pete Glass was after them.

"Anyway you want, partner," he was saying, in his soft, rather husky voice.

He poured his drink, barely enough to cover the bottom of his glass, for
that was another of Pete's ways; he could never afford to weaken his hand
or deaden his eye with alcohol, and even now he stood sideways at the bar,
facing Gregg and also facing the others in the room. But the larger man,
with sudden scorn for this caution, brimmed his own glass, and poised it