Without a word the man turned from the doorway.  Racey heard him walking across the floor.  And for so heavy a man his step was amazingly light.  Racey went into the house.  The room he entered was a large one.  In front of a side wall tiered to the low ceiling with shelves bearing a sorry assortment of ranch supplies was the store counter.  Across the back of the room ran the long bar.  Behind the bar, flanking the door giving into another room, were two shelves heavily stocked with rows of bottles.

The man that had come to the door was behind the bar.  His hands were resting on top of it, and he was staring fixedly and fishily at Racey Dawson.  There was no welcome in his face.  Nor was there any unfriendliness.  It was simply exceedingly expressionless.

Racey draped himself against the bar.  “Liquor,” said he.

Having absorbed a short one, he poured himself a second.  “Have one with me,” he nodded to the man.

“All right.”  The man’s tone was as expressionless as his face.  “Here’s hell.”  He filled and drank.

Racey looked about the room.

“Where’s Old Man Dale?” he asked, casually.

“He got away on me,” replied the man.  “He—­Say!”—­with sudden suspicion—­“who are you?”

“Are you McFluke?” shot back Racey.

The man nodded slowly, suspicion continuing to brighten his hard blue eyes.

“Then what didja let him get away for?” persisted Racey.  “Luke Tweezy said he left him here, and he said he’d stay here.  That was yore job—­to see he stayed here.”

“Who are—­” began the suspicious McFluke.

“Nemmine who I am,” rapped out Racey, who believed he had formed a correct estimate of McFluke.  “I’m somebody who knows more about this deal than you do, and that’s enough for you to know.  Why didn’t you hold Old Man Dale?”

“I—­He got away on me,” knuckled down McFluke.  “I was in the kitchen gettin’ me some coffee, and when I come back he had dragged it.”

“Luke Tweezy will be tickled to death with you,” said Racey Dawson.  “What do you s’pose he went to all that trouble for?”

“I couldn’t help it, could I?  I ain’t got eyes in the back of my head so’s I can see round corners an’ through doors.  How’d I know Old Man Dale was gonna slide off?  When I left him he was all so happy with his bottle you’d ‘a’ thought he’d took root for life.  Anyway, Peaches Austin oughta come before the old man left.  He was supposed to come, and he didn’t.  If anything slips up account o’ this it’s gotta be blamed on Peaches.”

“Yeah, I guess so.  And Peaches ain’t been here yet?”

“Not yet, and I wish to Gawd he was never comin’.”

The man’s tone was so earnest that Racey looked at him, startled.

“Why not?” he asked, coldly.

“Because I don’t wanna get my head blowed off, that’s why.”

“Aw, maybe it won’t come to that.  Maybe Luke will win out.”