“You seem to know a whole lot,” answered Thornton noncommittally neither voice nor face nor eye showing a hint of surprise or other emotion.  And yet he was thinking swiftly, that if this man spoke the truth he had a score to settle with Jimmie Clayton.

“Oh, it’s my business to know a whole lot,” resumed Comstock, answering the look in Thornton’s eyes.  “I just say that I’m not after Jimmie Clayton as I don’t want you to think that you’ll be giving away anything on a friend.  The man I want,” and he tilted his chair back a little farther, drew up his carefully creased trousers with thumb and forefinger and crossed one leg over the other, “is a man who got away from me seven years ago.  Down in New Mexico.”

“Name?” asked Thornton bluntly.

“His name doesn’t matter, I guess.  He had three during the time that I knew him, and I suppose he’s had half a dozen since.”

“Before you go any further,” interrupted Thornton, “tell me why you came to me at all?”

“Banker Templeton of Dry Town is a friend of mine.  We went to school together.  He’s the man who led me to believe, to hope,” he added softly, “that the man I want is working this country now.  I told Templeton that I wanted to make a little visit to this neck of the woods.  And he gave me your name.”

“I see.  Now, about your man?”

“I’m going to ask you a string of questions, Thornton.  We haven’t over much time and any way there wouldn’t be any use now in my stopping to explain just what I’m driving at and why I want to know this and that.  If you’ll just answer what I ask...”

“Fire away.”

For a little they smoked on in silence, Two-Hand Billy Comstock’s expression suggesting that he was planning precisely the course his inquiries were to take before beginning.

“Let’s start in this way!” he said at last.  “What men around here do you know real well, well enough to call friends?”

“I’ve been here only a year,” Thornton told him.  “I don’t know many men here real well.  Friends?  Outside Bud King and the boys working for me I don’t know any I’d call friend.”

“Then,” placidly suggested, “how about enemies?  A man can make a good many enemies in a year and not half try.”

“If you’ll change that to men I know pretty well and don’t like, and who don’t like me, I can name a name or two.”

“Let’s have ’em.”

“There’s Henry Pollard, to begin with.”

“The man you’re buying from.  First, how old a man is he and what does he look like?  Next, what do you know about him?”

Thornton described the man, guessed at his age, and told what he knew of “Rattlesnake” Pollard.  Comstock seemed interested in a mild sort of a way, but neither now nor later, as Thornton spoke of other men, did he give any sign of more than mild interest.

“Who are Pollard’s friends?” was the next question.

Thornton named Ben Broderick, two other men who do not come into the story, and Cole Dalton, the sheriff.  And as he named them, Comstock asked him to give an estimate at their ages, to tell what he knew of them and to give as close a personal description as he could.