The older of the two young men at the table nodded toward the roisterers and murmured information.  “Some of the Snaith-McRobert crowd.”

His companion was seated with his back to the bar.  He had riot turned his head to look at those lined up in front of the mirrors for drinks, but a curious change had come over him.  The relaxed body had grown rigid.  No longer was he lounging against the back of his chair.  From his eyes the laughter had been wiped out, as a wet sponge obliterates writing on a slate.  All his forces were gathered as if for instant action.  He was tense as a coiled spring.  His friend noticed that the boy was listening intently, every faculty concentrated at attention.

A man leaning against the other end of the bar was speaking.  He had a shock of long red hair and a squint to his eyes.

“Sure you’re right.  A bunch of Webb’s gunmen got Ranse—­caught him out alone and riddled him.  When Webb drove through here two days ago with a herd, his killers bragged of it.  Ask Harsha up at the Buffalo Corral if youse don’t believe me.  Sure as hell’s hot we got to go on the war-path.  Here, you Mike!  Set ’em up again.”

The boy at the table had drawn back his lips so that the canine teeth stood out like tusks.  There was something wolfish about the face, from which all the color had been driven.  It expressed something so deadly, so menacing, that the young man across from him felt a shock almost of fear.  “We’d better get out of here,” he said, glancing toward the group near the front door.

The other young man did not answer, but he made no move to leave.  He was still taking in every syllable of what the drinkers were saying.

The ex-guerrilla was talking.  “Tha’s sure sayin’ something, Hugh.  There ain’t room in New Mexico for Webb’s outfit an’ ours too.”

“Better go slow, boys,” advised another.  He was a thick-set man in the late thirties, tight-lipped and heavy-jawed.  His eyes were set so close together that it gave him a sinister expression.  “Talkin’ don’t get us anywhere.  If we’re goin’ to sit in a game with Homer Webb an’ his punchers we got to play our hand close.”

“Buck Sanders, segundo of the Lazy S M ranches,” explained again the young man at the table in a low voice.  “Say, kid, let’s beat it while the goin’ is good.”

The big bow-legged man answered the foreman.  “You’re right, Buck.  So’s Hugh.  So’s the old rebel.  I’m jus’ servin’ notice that no bunch of shorthorn punchers can kill a brother of mine an’ get away with it.  Un’erstand?  I’ll meet up with them some day an’ I’ll sure fog ’em to a fare-you-well.”  He interlarded his speech with oaths and foul language.

“I’ll bet you do, Dave,” chipped in the man next him, who had had a run-in with the Texas Rangers and was on the outskirts of civilization because the Lone Star State did not suit his health.  “I would certainly hate to be one of them when yore old six-gun begins to pop.  It sure will be Glory-hallelujah for some one.”