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Updated: May 13, 2025
Max poured the drinks an odd experience befell Mr. José Espalin. His tilted chair leaned against the casing of the billiard-room door. As Max filled the first glass Espalin became suddenly aware of something round and hard and cold pressed against his right temple. Mr. Espalin felt some curiosity, but he sat perfectly still. The object shifted a few inches; Mr.
Espalin perceived from the tail of his eye the large, unfeeling muzzle of a sixshooter; beyond it, a glimpse of the forgotten elderly stranger, Mr. Pringle. Only Mr. Pringle's fighting face appeared, and that but for a moment; he laid a finger to lip and crouched, hidden by the partition and by Espalin's body. Mr.
Applegate and Creagan tell it that they saw Chris leaving town at eleven o'clock, that he said he was coming up here, and that he made a war-talk about Marr. But not a word about Pringle or the fight at the hotel. Joe Espalin doesn't appear no claim that he saw Foy at all." "That looks ugly," observed Pringle. "Ugly! Your testimony is to be thrown out as a lie made of whole cloth.
Applegate lowered his voice, with a significant glance at Espalin. "He threatened your life to-day. I thought you ought to know it." Foy considered his cigar. "That's awkward," he replied briefly. "Chris," said Ben, "this isn't the first time. Dick's heart is bad to you. I'm sorry. He was my friend and you were not. But you're not looking for any trouble now. Dick is.
"Well, nobody's going to play any more with you," snapped Max. "You bore 'em." He pyramided the balls and covered the table. With a sad and lingering backward look Pringle slouched abjectly through the wide-arched doorway to the bar. "Come on, fellers have something." "Naw!" snarled José Espalin. "I'm a-tryin' to theenk. Shut up, won't you?"
"There has been a time when you might not have fancied this particular bunch hey? All over now, please the pigs. Come in and give it a name. Beer for mine." "I'll smoke," said Foy. "Me too," said Espalin. He lit a cigar and returned to his chair. Ben Creagan passed behind the bar and handed over a sixshooter and a cartridge belt. "Here, Chris here's the gun I borrowed of you when I broke mine.
Pringle sighed patiently at the rebuff and stole a timid glance at the thinker. Espalin was a lean little, dried-up manikin, with legs, arms, and mustaches disproportionately long for his dwarfish body. His black, wiry hair hung in ragged witchlocks; his black pin-point eyes were glittering, cold, and venomous. He looked, thought Pringle, very much like a spider.
Espalin and the barkeeper don't appear. They're afraid the Mexican will get tangled up, and Max will swear he didn't see Chris at all. It's cut and dried. You are to be canceled. Marr was found this morning at the first crossroad above town. His watch was stopped at ten minutes to twelve mashed, it seemed, where it hit on a stone when he fell.
What a charming reunion!" Applegate's eyes threw a startled question at his chief and at Creagan; Espalin slipped swiftly back through the door. "I don't know you, sir," said Applegate. "George! You're never going to disown me! Joe's gone, too. Nobody loves me!" The third man, a grizzled and bristly old warrior with a limp, broke in with a roar. "What in hell's going on here?" he stormed.
Pringle kicked his gun from the holster and set foot upon it; one of his own guns covered the bartender and the other kept watch on Espalin, silent on his still-tilted chair. "Who're you!" challenged Foy. "Friend with the countersign. Don't shoot! Don't shoot me, anyhow." Foy rose from hand and knee to knee and foot. This rescuer, so opportunely arrived from nowhere, seemed to be an ally.
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