But Mr. Hamlin had quite as accurate an idea of Mr. Van Loo’s methods and of his own standing with Steptoe’s gang of roughs as Mr. Steptoe himself.  More than that, he also had a hold on a smaller but more devoted and loyal following than Steptoe’s.  The employees and hostlers of the hotel worshiped him.  A single word of inquiry revealed to him the fact that the buggy was not going on, but that Mr. Van Loo and Mrs. Barker were—­on two horses, a temporary side-saddle having been constructed out of a mule’s pack-tree.  At which Mr. Hamlin, with his usual audacity, walked into the bar-room, and going to the bar leaned carelessly against it.  Then turning to the lowering faces around him, he said, with a flash of his white teeth, “Well, boys, I’m calculating to leave the Divide in a few minutes to follow some friends in the buggy, and it seems to me only the square thing to stand the liquor for the crowd, without prejudice to any feeling or roughness there may be against me.  Everybody who knows me knows that I’m generally there when the band plays, and I’m pretty sure to turn up for that sort of thing.  So you’ll just consider that I’ve had a good game on the Divide, and I’m reckoning it’s only fair to leave a little of it behind me here, to ‘sweeten the pot’ until I call again.  I only ask you, gentlemen, to drink success to my friends in the buggy as early and as often as you can.”  He flung two gold pieces on the counter and paused, smiling.

He was right in his conjecture.  Even the men who would have willingly “held him up” a moment after, at the bidding of Steptoe, saw no reason for declining a free drink “without prejudice.”  And it was a part of the irony of the situation that Steptoe and Van Loo were also obliged to participate to keep in with their partisans.  It was, however, an opportune diversion to Van Loo, who managed to get nearer the door leading to the back entrance of the hotel, and to Mr. Jack Hamlin, who was watching him, as the men closed up to the bar.

The toast was drunk with acclamation, followed by another and yet another.  Steptoe and Van Loo, who had kept their heads cool, were both wondering if Hamlin’s intention were to intoxicate and incapacitate the crowd at the crucial moment, and Steptoe smiled grimly over his superior knowledge of their alcoholic capacity.  But suddenly there was the greater diversion of a shout from the road, the on-coming of a cloud of red dust, and the halt of another vehicle before the door.  This time it was no jaded single horse and dust-stained buggy, but a double team of four spirited trotters, whose coats were scarcely turned with foam, before a light station wagon containing a single man.  But that man was instantly recognized by every one of the outside loungers and stable-boys as well as the staring crowd within the saloon.  It was James Stacy, the millionaire and banker.  No one but himself knew that he had covered half the distance of a night-long ride from Boomville in two hours.  But before they could voice their astonishment Stacy had thrown a letter to the obsequious landlord, and then gathering up the reins had sped away to the railroad station half a mile distant.