And The Spider knew, without other evidence than his own eyes found, that this young stranger would not hesitate to kill him if sufficient provocation offered.  Nor did this displease the autocrat of Showdown in the least.  He was accustomed to dealing with such men.  Yet one thing bothered him.  Had the stranger made a get-away that would bring a posse to Showdown—­as the Mexican had intimated?  If so the sooner the visitor left, the better.  If he were merely some cowboy looking for easy money and excitement, that was a different matter.  Or perhaps he had but stolen a horse, or butchered and sold beef that bore a neighbor’s brand.  Yet there was something about Pete that impressed The Spider more deeply than mere horse- or cattle-stealing could.  The youth’s eye was not the eye of a thief.  He had not come to Showdown to consort with rustlers.  He was somewhat of a puzzle—­but The Spider, true to his name, was silently patient.

Meanwhile the desert sun rolled upward and onward, blazing down on the huddled adobes, and slowly filtering into the room.  With his back to the bar, Pete idly flicked bits of a broken match at a knot-hole in the floor.  Tired of that, he rolled a cigarette with one hand, and swiftly.  Pete’s hands were compact, of medium size, with the finger joints lightly defined—­the hands of a conjuror—­or, as The Spider thought, of a born gunman.  And Pete was always doing something with his hands, even when apparently oblivious to everything around him.  A novice at reading men would have considered him nervous.  He was far from nervous.  This was proven to The Spider’s satisfaction when Malvey entered—­“Bull” Malvey, red-headed, bluff and huge, of a gaunt frame, with large-knuckled hands and big feet.  Malvey tossed a coin on the bar noisily, and in that one act Pete read him for what he was—­a man who “bullied” his way through life with much bluster and profanity, but a man who, if he boasted, would make good his boast.  What appeared to be hearty good-nature in Malvey was in reality a certain blatantly boisterous vigor—­a vigor utterly soulless, and masking a nature at bottom as treacherous as The Spider’s—­but in contrast squalid and mean.  Malvey would steal five dollars.  The Spider would not touch a job for less than five hundred.  While cruel, treacherous, and a killer, The Spider had nothing small or mean about him.  And subtle to a degree, he hated the blunt-spoken, blustering Malvey, but for reasons unadvertised, called him friend.

“Have a drink?”

“Thanks.”  And Pete poured himself a noticeably small quantity.

“This is Malvey—­Bull Malvey,” said The Spider, hesitating for Pete to name himself.

“Pete’s my name.  I left the rest of it to home.”

Malvey laughed.  “That goes.  How’s things over to the Concho?”

“I ain’t been there since yesterday.”

The Spider blinked, which was a sign that he was pleased.  He never laughed.