None the less Red’s grumbling was a pretense.  He would not have been anywhere else for twice the pay.  This was what he lived for.

Johnnie Green, commonly known as “the Runt,” helped himself to another flank steak.  He was not much of a cow-hand, but when it came to eating Johnnie was always conscientiously on the job.

“These here New Yorkers must be awful hardy,” he ventured, apropos of nothing.  “Seems like they’re night birds for fair.  Never do go to bed, far as I can make out.  They tromp the streets all day and dance at them cabby-rets all night.  My feet would be all wore out.”

Stace Wallis grinned.  “So would my pocketbook.  I’ve heard tell how a fellow can pay as high as four or five dollars for an eat at them places.”

“Nothin’ to it—­nothin’ a-tall,” pronounced Red dogmatically.  Hollister always knew everything.  Nothing in the heavens above or the earth below could stump him.  The only trouble with his knowledge was that he knew so much that wasn’t true.  “Can’t be did.  Do you reckon any o’ them New Yorkers could get away with five dollars’ worth of ham and aigs?  Why, the Runt here couldn’t eat more’n a dollar’s worth.”

“Sure,” assented Johnnie.  It was the habit of his life to agree with the last speaker.  “You’re damn whistlin’, Red.  Why, at the Harvey House they only charge a dollar for a square, and a man couldn’t get a better meal than that.”

“Onct in Denver, when I went to the stock show, I blowed myself for a meal at the Cambridge Hotel that set me back one-fifty,” said Slim Leroy reminiscently.  “They et dinner at night.”

“They did?” scoffed Johnnie.  “Don’t they know a fellow eats dinner at noon and supper at night?”

“I ain’t noticed any dinner at noon for se-ve-real weeks,” Hollister contributed.

“Some feed that,” ruminated Leroy, with memories of the Cambridge Hotel still to the fore.

“With or without?” questioned Red.

“I reckon I had one li’l’ drink with it.  No more.”

“Then they stung you,” pronounced Hollister.

“Mebbeso, and mebbe not.  I ain’t kickin’ none.  I sure was in tony society.  There was fellows sittin’ at a table near us that had on them swallow-tail coats.”

Johnnie ventured a suggestion.  “Don’t you reckon if a fellow et a couple o’ plates of this here cavi-eer stuff and some ice cream and cake, he might run it up to two bucks or two and a half?  Don’t you reckon he might, Clay?”

Clay Lindsay laughed.  “You boys know a lot about New York, just about as much as I do.  I’ve read that a guy can drop a hundred dollars a night in a cabaret if he has a friend or two along, and never make a ripple on Broadway.”

“Does that look reasonable to you, Clay?” argued Red.  “We’re not talkin’ about buckin’ the tiger or buyin’ diamonds for no actresses.  We’re figurin’ on a guy goin’ out with some friends to eat and take a few drinks and have a good time.  How could he spend fifty dollars—­let alone a hundred—­if he let the skirts and the wheel alone and didn’t tamper with no straight flushes?”