For a fraction of a minute there was silence, while over the visage of the challenged there flashed, faded, recurred the expression we pay good dollars to watch playing upon the features of an accomplished actor; then the yellow streak beneath the bravado showed, and the menacing hand dropped to the holster at the hip.  Once again Kennedy, who seldom made a mistake, had sized his man correctly.

“What do I owe you altogether, Mick?” asked a changed and subdued voice.  “Make it as easy as you can.”

Kennedy relaxed into his lounging position.

“Thirty-five dollars.  We’ll call it thirty.  You’ve been setting them up to everybody here for a week on your face.”

“Can’t you give me just a little more credit, Mick?” An expression meant to be a smile formed upon the haggard face.  “Just for old time’s sake?  You know I’ve always been a good customer of yours, Kennedy.”

“Not a cent.”

“But I’ve got to have liquor!” One hand, ill-kept, but long of fingers and refined of shape, steadied the speaker.  “I can’t get along without it!”

“Sell something, then, and pay up.”

The man thought a moment and shook his head.

“I haven’t anything to sell; you know that.  It’s the wrong time of the year.”  He paused, and the travesty of a smile reappeared.  “Next Winter—­”

“You’ve got a horse outside.”

For an instant Blair’s gaunt face darkened at the insult; he grew almost dignified; but the drink curse had too strong a grip upon him and the odor of whiskey was in the air.

“Yes, I’ve a good horse,” he said slowly.  “What’ll you give for him?”

“Seventy dollars.”

“He’s a good horse, worth a hundred.”

“I’m glad of that, but I’m not dealing in horses.  I make the offer just to oblige you.  Besides, as you said, it’s an off season.”

“You won’t give me more?”

“No.”

Blair looked impotently about the room, but his former companions had returned to their game.  Filling in the silence, the dull clatter of chips mingled with the drunken snores of the man on the floor.

“Very well, give me forty,” he said at last.

“You accept, do you?”

“Yes.”

“All right.”

Blair waited a moment.  “Aren’t you going to give me what’s coming?” he asked.

Slowly the single eye fixed him as before.

“I didn’t know you had anything coming.”

“Why, you just said forty dollars!”

There was no relenting in Kennedy’s face.

“You owe that gentleman over there at the table for forty blues.  I’ll settle with him.”

Instinctively, as before, Blair’s thin hand went to his throat, clutching at the coarse flannel.  He saw he was beaten.

“Well, give me a drink, anyway!”

Silently Mick took a big flask from the shelf and set it with a decanter upon the bar.  Filling the glass, Blair drained it at a gulp, refilled and drained it—­and then again.