* * * * *

Charming Billy Boyle had done all that he had planned to do, except that he had not yet pulled out for the place he had named picturesquely for himself.  Much as at the beginning, he was leaning heavily upon the bar in the Hardup Saloon, and his hat was pushed back on his head; but he was not hilarious to the point of singing about “the young thing,” and he was not, to any appreciable extent, enjoying himself.  He was merely adding what he considered the proper finishing touch to his calamities.  He was spinning silver dollars, one by one, across the bar to the man with the near-white apron, and he was endeavoring to get the worth of them down his throat.  To be sure, he was being assisted, now and then, by several acquaintances; but considering the fact that a man’s stomach has certain well-defined limitations, he was doing very well, indeed.

When he had spun the twenty-third dollar to the bartender, Billy meant to quit drinking for the present; after that, he was not quite clear as to his intentions, farther than “forking his hoss and pulling out” when there was no more to be done.  He felt uneasily that between his present occupation and the pulling-out process lay a duty unperformed, but until the door swung open just as he was crying, “Come on, fellows,” he had not been able to name it.

The Pilgrim it was who entered jauntily; the Pilgrim, who had not chanced to meet Billy once during the summer, and so was not aware that the truce between them was ended for good and all.  He knew that Billy had not at any time been what one might call cordial, but that last stare of displeasure when they met in the creek at the Double-Crank, he had set down to a peevish mood.  Under the circumstances, it was natural that he should walk up to the bar with the rest.  Under the circumstances, it was also natural that Billy should object to this unexpected and unwelcome guest, and that the vague, unperformed duty should suddenly flash into his mind clear, and well-defined, and urgent.

“Back up, Pilgrim,” was his quiet way of making known his purpose.  “Yuh can’t drink on my money, old-timer, nor use a room that I’m honoring with my presence.  Just right now, I’m here.  It’s up to you to back out—­away out—­clean outside and across the street.”

The Pilgrim did not move.

Billy had been drinking, but his brain was not of the stuff that fuddles easily, and he was not, as the Pilgrim believed, drunk.  His eyes when he stared hard at the Pilgrim were sober eyes, sane eyes—­and something besides.

“I said it,” he reminded softly, when men had quit shuffling their feet and the room was very still.

“I don’t reckon yuh know what yuh said,” the Pilgrim retorted, laughing uneasily and shifting his gaze a bit.  “What they been doping yuh with, Bill?  There ain’t any quarrel between you and me no more.”  His tone was abominably, condescendingly tolerant, and his look was the look which a mastiff turns wearily upon a hysterical toy-terrier yapping foolishly at his knees.  For the Pilgrim had changed much in the past year and more during which men had respected him because he was not considered quite safe to trifle with.  According to the reputation they gave him, he had killed a man who had tried to kill him, and he could therefore afford to be pacific upon occasion.