The time was an evening in the first week in May; the place was the
Arkansas Saloon in Willow Bend, Redstone County, the man was Billy
Wingo, wearing a sevenweeks' beard and an air of preoccupation. He was
draped against the bar, making rings on the bar top with the wet bottom
of his whisky glass.
The weather was unseasonably warm, and the big double-burner reflector
lamps in the saloon raised the bar-room temperature at least fifteen
degrees. Billy felt the salty moisture running down into his eyes. He
pushed back his hat and with a fillip of his fingers slatted off the
perspiration.
He did not see a man at the other end of the bar look up at his sudden
movement. Nor, when he departed after his second glass, did he know
that the other man was following until he had passed out into the
street. Then, with that sixth sense men who carry their lives in their
holsters so frequently develop, he knew it. Hence, quite naturally,
instead of going directly to the hotel hitching-rail where his horse
was tied, he sauntered with apparent aimlessness round the corner of
the saloon, along the blank side wall and round the next corner.
In the darkness behind this corner, gun in hand, he waited. The other
man slid round the corner in his wake and ran plump into the muzzle of
the Wingo six-shooter.
"Were you looking for me?" Bill asked in a low tone.
The man, having shown that he was no shorthorn by promptly throwing up
his hands, laughed low. "I was looking for you," he said, still
chuckling, "but not the way you mean."
"Your voice sounds familiar," said the sceptical Billy. "Suppose you
step over here into the light from this window. Keep your hands up."
"Glad to--both ways," agreed the man, obeying instantly. "Satisfied
now?"
"You can put 'em down," said Billy sliding his gun back into the
holster as soon as the light fell on the man's face. "I thought you
went up to Jacksboro to visit your uncle."
"I did," said John Dawson. "But I thought I'd drift back for the Cross
T round-up. On my way south I stopped at Golden Bar."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. I was looking for a gent name of Tuckleton. I saw where he was
buried."
"I guess you heard something while you were there, huh?"
"I heard something in Jacksboro, too. That's why I followed you.
Let's go where we can talk private."
On a log, in the darkness, behind the dance hall, they sat down to talk
"private."
"What did you hear in Jacksboro?" Billy asked.
"I heard a posse talk--six men. I met 'em over on Coldstream Creek
three-four times."