It was late at night. The yellow lamplight left hard faces almost repulsive under the fantastic shadows it so fitfully impressed upon them. The low-ceiled room, too, gained in its sordid aspect. An atmosphere of moral degradation looked out from every shadowy corner, claiming the features of everybody who came within the dull radiance of the two cheap oil lamps swinging from the rafters.

Dirty O’Brien’s saloon was a fitting setting for a proprietor with such a name. Crime of every sort was suggested in its atmosphere at all time; but at night, when the two oil lamps, with their smoky chimneys, were burning, when drink was flowing, when the room was full of rough bechapped men belonging to the valley, with their long hair, their unwashed skins, their frowsy garments, and the firearms adorning their persons, when strident voices kept up an almost continual babel of coarse oaths, interlarded with rough laughter, or deadly quarrelings, when the permeation of alcohol had done its work and left its victims in a condition when self-control, at all times weak enough in these untamed citizens, was at its lowest ebb, then indeed the stranger, unaccustomed to such sights and sounds, might well feel that at last a cesspool of civilization had been reached.

The room was large in floor space, but the bark-covered rafters, frowsy with cobwebs, were scarcely more than two feet above the head of a six-foot man. The roof was on a gradual, flat slope from the bar to the front door, which was flanked by windows on either side of it. So low were the latter set, and so small were they, that a well-grown man must have stooped low to peer through the befouled glass panes. The walls of the building were of heavy lateral logs bare as the day they were set up, except for a coating of whitewash which must have stood the wear of at least ten years.

The evening had been a long and noisy one; longer and noisier than usual. For a note of alarm had swept through the town—an alarm which, in natures as savage and unscrupulous as those of the citizens of the valley, promptly aroused the desperate fighting spirit always pretty near the surface.

The gathering was pretty well representative of the place. The bar had been crowded all night. Some of the men were plain townsmen belonging to the purely commercial side of the place, and these were clad as became citizens of any little western township. But they were the very small minority, and had no particularly elevating effect upon the aspect of the gathering. Far and away the majority were of the prairie, men from outlying farms and ranches, whose hard, bronzed features and toil-stained kits, marked them out as legitimate workers who found their recreation in the foul purlieus of this drinking booth merely from lack of anything more enticing. Then, too, a few dusky-visaged, lank-haired creatures wearing the semi-barbaric costume of the prairie half-breed found a place in the gathering.

But none of these were the loud-voiced, hard-swearing complainants. That was left to a section of the citizens of the town who had everything in the world to lose by the coming of the police. As the evening wore on these gradually drew everybody’s interest in the matter, until the stirring of passions raised the babel of tongues to an almost intolerable clamor.

Dirty O’Brien, sinister and cynical, stood behind his bar serving every customer with a rapidity and nonchalance which the presence of the police in the place could never disturb. But the situation was well within his grasp. On this particular night his mandate had gone forth, and, in his own bar, he was an absolute autocrat. Each drink served must be devoured at once, and the empty glass promptly passed back across the counter. These were hastily borne off by an assistant to an adjoining room, where, in secret cupboards let into the sod partition wall, the kegs of smuggled spirit were secreted. All drinks were poured out in this room, and, on the first alarm, the secret cupboards could be hidden up, and all sign of the traffic concealed. Then there was nothing left to be seen but the musty display of temperance drinks on the shelves behind the bar, and a barrel of four per cent. beer, for the dispensing of which the existence of these prohibition saloons was tolerated and licensed by the Government.

Dirty O’Brien knew the law to the last word. He only came up against it when caught in the act of selling spirits. This was scarcely likely to happen. He was far too astute. His only danger was a trap customer, and the difficulties and dangers of attempting such a course, even the most foolhardy would scarcely dare to risk in a place as untamed as Rocky Springs.

Even the wildest spirits, however, were bound to reach their limit of protest against this new move of the authorities, and by midnight the majority of the customers had taken their departure from Dirty O’Brien’s booth. Thus, when the small hours crept on, only a trifling gathering of his regular patrons still remained behind.

The air of the place was utterly foul. The stench of tobacco smoke blending with the fumes of liquor left it nauseating. In the farthest corner of the room, just beside one of the windows, a group of four men were playing draw poker, and with these were Kate’s two hired men, Nick Devereux, with his vulture head and long lean neck, and Pete Clancy, the half-breed, whose cadaverous cheeks and furtive eye marked him out as a man of desperate purpose.

At another table Kid Blaney was amusing himself with a pack of cards, betting on the turn-up with the well-known badman, Stormy Longton. For the rest there was a group of citizens lounging against the bar, still discussing with the proprietor the possibilities of the newly created situation. These were the postmaster, Allan Dy, and Billy Unguin, the dry-goods man, and the patriarch church robber known as Holy Dick. The only other occupant of the bar was Charlie Bryant.

He had come there earlier in the evening for no other purpose than to hear how the town was taking the arrival of the police, and to glean, if possible, any news of the contemplated movements of Stanley Fyles. This had been his purpose, and for some time he had resisted all other temptation. Nor, apart from his weakness, was he without considerable added temptation. Dirty O’Brien displayed a marked geniality toward him the moment he came in, and, by every consummate art of which he was master, sought to break through the man’s resolve.

Charlie fell. Of course he fell, as in the end O’Brien knew he would. And, once having fallen, he lingered on and on, drinking all that came his way with that insatiable craving, which, once indulged, never left him a moment’s peace.

Now, silent, resentful, but only partially under the influence of liquor, he was sitting upon the edge of the wooden coal box which stood against the wall at the end of the counter. His legs were outspread along the top of its side, and his back was resting against the counter itself. His eyes were bright with that peculiar luster inspired by a brain artificially stimulated. They were slightly puffed, but otherwise his boyish features bore no sign of his libations. One peculiarity, however, suggested a change in him. The womanish delicacy of his lips had somehow gone, and now they protruded sensually as he sucked at a cheap cigarette.

Although these were only slight changes in Charlie’s appearance, they nevertheless possessed a strangely brutalizing effect upon the refinement of his handsome face. And, added to them was an air of moroseness, of cold reserve, that suggested nothing so much as impotent resentment at the conditions under which he found himself.

Without any appearance of interest he was listening to the talk of those at the bar. And somehow, though his back was turned toward him, O’Brien, judging by the frequency with which his quick-moving eyes flashed in his direction, was aware of his real interest, and was looking for some sign whereby he might draw him into the talk. But the sign did not come, and the saloonkeeper was left without the least encouragement.

Finally, however, O’Brien made a direct attempt. He was standing a round of drinks and included in his invitation the man on the coal box. He passed him a glass of whisky.

“Have another,” he said, in his short way. Then he added: “On me.”

Charlie thanked him curtly, and took the drink. He drank it at a gulp and passed the glass back. But his general attitude underwent no change. His eyes remained morosely fixed upon the poker players.

Billy Unguin winked significantly at O’Brien and glanced at Charlie.

“Queer cuss,” he said, under his breath. Then he turned to Allen Dy, as though imparting news: “Drinks alone—always alone.”

Dy nodded comprehendingly.

“Sure sign of a drunkard,” he returned wisely, in a similar undertone.

O’Brien smiled. He was about to give vent to one of his coldest cynicisms, when Nick Devereux looked over from the card table and claimed him.

“Say, Dirty,” he drawled, in his rather musical southern accent, “wher’ in hell is Fyles located anyhow? There’s been a mighty piece of big talk goin’ on, but none of us ain’t seen him. Big talk makes me sick.” He spat on the floor as though to emphasize his disgust.

“He’s around anyways,” O’Brien returned coldly. “I’ve seen him right here. After that he rode east. One of the boys see him pick up Sergeant McBain an’ two troopers. Will that do you?” he inquired sarcastically.

Nick picked up a fresh hand of cards.

“Have to—till I see him,” he said savagely.

“Oh, you’ll see him all right—all right,” O’Brien returned with a laugh, while the men at the bar grinned over at the card players. “Guess you boys’ll see him later—all you need.” Then his eyes flashed in Charlie’s direction, and he winked at those near him. “Maybe some folks around here’ll hate the sight of him before long.”

Pete looked up, turning his cruel eyes with a malicious grin on O’Brien.

“Guess there’s more than us boys goin’ to see him if there’s trouble busy. Say, I don’t guess there’s a heap of folk ’ud fancy Fyles sittin’ around their winter stoves in this city.”

“Or summer stoves either,” chuckled Holy Dick, craning round so that his gray hair revealed the dirty collar on his soft shirt.

Stormy Longton glanced over quickly, while the kid shuffled the cards.

“Who cares a curse for red-coats?” he snorted fiercely, his keen, scarred face flushing violently, his steel-gray eyes shining like silver tinsel. “If Fyles and his boys butt in there’ll be a dandy bunch of lead flying around Rocky Springs. Maybe it won’t drop from the sky neither. There’s fools who reckon when it comes to shooting that fair play’s a jewel. Wal, when I’m up against police butters-in, or any vermin like that, I leave my jewelry right home.”

O’Brien chuckled voicelessly.

“Gas,” he cried, in his cutting way. “Hot air, an’—gas. I tell you right here, Fyles and his crowd have got crooks beat to death in this country. I’ll tell you more, it’s only because this country’s so mighty wide and big, crooks have got any chance of dodging the penitentiary at all. I tell you, you folks ain’t got an eye open at all, if you can’t see how things are. If I was handing advice, I’d say to crooks, quit your ways an’ run straight awhiles, if you don’t fancy a striped suit. The red-coats are jest runnin’ this country through a sieve, and when they’re done they’ll grab the odd rock, which are the crooks, and hide ’em away a few years. You can’t beat ’em, and Fyles is the daddy of the outfit. No, sir, crooks are beat—beat to death.”

Then his eyes shot a furtive look in Charlie’s direction.

“The sharps ain’t in such bad case,” he went on. “I’d say it’s the sharps are worrying the p’lice about now. The prohibition law has got ’em plumb on edge. The other things are dead easy to ’em. You see, a feller shoots up another and they’re after him, red hot on his trail. They’ll get him sure—in the end, because he’s wanted at any time or place. It’s different running whisky. They got to get the fellow in the act o’ running it. They can’t touch him five minutes after he’s cached it safe—not if they know he’s run it. If they find his cache they can spill the liquor, but still they can’t touch him. That’s where the sharps ha’ got Fyles beat.”

He chuckled sardonically.

“Guess I’d sooner be a whisky-running sharp than be a crook with Fyles on my trail,” he added as an afterthought.

“An’ he’s after the sharps most now,” suggested Holy Dick, with a contemplative eye on Charlie.

A laugh came from the poker table. Holy Dick glanced round as a harsh voice commented——

“Feelin’ glad, ain’t you, Holy?” it said.

Holy Dick spat.

“I’d feel gladder, Pete Clancy, if I could put him wise to some o’ the whisky sharps,” said the old man vindictively. “Maybe it would sheer him off Rocky Springs.”

The man’s eyes were snapping for all the mildness of his words.

O’Brien replied before Pete could summon his angry retort.

“There’s a good many sharps in the game in this town, and I don’t guess it would be a gay day for the feller that put any of ’em away. Not that I think anybody could, by reason of the feller that runs the gang. Look at that train ‘hold-up’ at White Point. Was there ever such a bright play? I tell you, whoever runs that gang is a wise guy. He’s ten points flyer than Master Stanley Fyles. Say, Fyles was waiting for that cargo at Amberley, and here are you boys, drinking some of it right here, and with him around the town, too. Say, the boss of that gang is a bright boy.”

He sighed as though regretful that so much cleverness should have passed him by in favor of another, and again his gaze wandered in Charlie’s direction.

“Well, I’m glad I’m not a—sharp,” said Billy Unguin, preparing to depart. “Come on, Allan,” he went on to the postmaster. “It’s past midnight and——”

O’Brien chuckled.

“There’s the old woman waiting.”

Billy nodded good-naturedly, and the two passed out with a brief “good night.”

When they had gone Holy Dick leaned across the bar confidentially.

“Who’d you guess is the boss of the gang?” he inquired.

O’Brien shook his head.

“Can’t say,” he said, with a knowing wink. “All I know is I can lay hands on all the liquor I need right here in this town, and I’m dealing direct with the boss. When the money’s up right, the liquor’s laid any place you select. He don’t give himself away to any customer. He’s the smartest guy this side of hell. He’s right here all the time, jest one of the boys, and we don’t know who he is.”

“No one’s ever seen him—except his gang,” murmured Holy, with a smile. “Guess they wouldn’t give him away neither.”

Stormy Longton and the Kid arose from their table and demanded a final drink. O’Brien served them and they took their departure.

“I sort of fancy I saw him once,” said O’Brien, in answer to Holy Dick’s remark.

He spoke loudly, and his eyes again took in the silent Charlie in their roving glance. At that instant the poker game broke up, and the men gathered at the bar.

“What’s he like?” demanded Nick derisively.

“Guess he’s a hell of a man,” laughed Pete sarcastically.

O’Brien eyed his interlocutors coldly. He had no liking for men with color in them. They always roused the worst side of his none too easy nature.

“Wal,” he said frigidly, “I ain’t sure. But, if I’m right, he ain’t such a hell of a feller. He ain’t a giant. Kind o’ small. All his smartness wrapped in a little bundle. Sort o’ refined-looking. Make a dandy fine angel—to look at. Bit of a swell sharp. Got education bad. But he ain’t got swells around him. Not by a sight. His gang are the lowest down bums I ever heard tell of. Say, they’re that low I’d hate to drink out of the same glass as any one of them.” He picked up Pete’s glass and dipped it in water, and began to wipe it. “It ’ud need to be mighty well cleaned first—like I’m doing this one.”

His manner and action were a studied insult, which neither Pete nor Nick attempted to take up. But Holy Dick’s grin drew threatening glances. Somehow, however, even in his direction neither made any more aggressive movement. Toughs as they were, these two men fully appreciated the company they were in. Holy Dick was one of the most desperate men in Rocky Springs, and, as for O’Brien, well, no one had ever been known to get “gay” with Dirty O’Brien and come off best.

Pete strove to grin the insult aside.

“Wal,” he said, with a yawn, “I guess Fyles has ‘some’ feller to handle, if your yarn’s right, Dirty. Blankets fer mine and—right now. Comin’, Nick? An’ you boys? Nick an’ me are hayin’ bright an’ early to-morrer mornin’,” he added with a laugh, as he moved toward the door.

The others slouched after him and with them went the cold voice of O’Brien.

“You an’ Nick hayin’ is good—mighty good,” he said, with a sneer. “Nigh as good as Satin poppin’ corn at a Sunday School tea.”

“Or Dirty O’Brien handin’ out scripture readin’s in the same layout,” retorted Pete, as he followed his companions out of the door.

Holy Dick ordered a “night-cap.”

“Them two fellers make me hot as hell,” cried O’Brien fiercely, as he dashed the whisky into Holy’s glass from a bottle under the counter.

“Ther’, Holy, drink up, and git. I’m quittin’ right now,” he added. “Say, I’m just sick to death handin’ out drinks this day.”

Holy Dick grinned, his bloodshot eyes twinkling with an evil leer, which was never far from their expression.

“With things sportin’ busy as they done to-day, guess you won’t need to keep at it long. Say, Fyles has brought you dollars an’ dollars.”

The old rascal gulped down his drink and slouched out of the bar chuckling. He was always an amiable villain—until roused.

As the door closed behind him O’Brien leaned on his bar, and looked over at the back view of the still recumbent figure of Charlie Bryant.

“I was thinkin’ of closin’ down, Charlie,” he said quietly.

Charlie looked around. Then, when he became aware that the room was entirely empty, he sprang up with a sudden start.

He looked dazed. But, after a moment, his confusion slowly faded out, and he looked into the grinning eyes of probably the shrewdest man in the valley.

“Feelin’ good?” suggested the saloonkeeper. “Have a ‘night-cap’?”

Charlie raised one delicate hand and passed it wearily across his forehead. As it passed once more that eager craving lit his eyes. His reply came almost roughly.

“Hell—yes,” he cried. Then he laughed idiotically.

O’Brien poured out a double drink and passed it across to him. He took a drink himself. He watched the other as he greedily swallowed the spirit. Then he drank his more slowly. It was only the second drink he had taken that day.

“Say, I’m runnin’ out of rye and brandy,” he said, setting his glass in the bucket under the counter, and picking up Charlie’s. “Guess I need 10 brandy and 20 rye—right away.”

He was wiping the glasses deliberately, and paused as though in some doubt before he went on. But Charlie made no effort to encourage him. Only in his eyes was a faint, growing smile, the meaning of which was not quite apparent.

“I left the order—with the dollars—same place,” O’Brien went on presently. “Same old spot,” he added with a grin.

Charlie’s smile had broadened. A whimsical humor was peeping out of his half-drunken eyes.

“Sure,” he nodded. “Same old spot.”

O’Brien set his glasses aside.

“I need it right away. I’d like it laid in my barn, ’stead of the—usual spot. I wrote that on my order. Makes it easier—with Fyles around.”

Again Charlie nodded.

“Sure,” he agreed briefly.

O’Brien found himself responding to the other’s smile.

These whisky-runners meant everything to him, and he felt it incumbent upon him to display his most amiable side.

“Say,” he chuckled, “the bark of the old tree’s held some dollars of mine in its time. It’s a hell of a good thing that tree has a yarn to it. The folks ’ud sure fetch it down for the new church if it hadn’t. I’d say it would be awkward. We’d need a new cache for our orders and—dollars.”

Charlie shook his head.

“Guess they won’t cut it down,” he said easily. “They’re scared of the superstition.”

O’Brien abandoned his smile and became confidential.

“Ain’t you—worried some, Fyles gettin’ around?”

For a moment Charlie made no answer. The smile abruptly died out of his eyes, and a marked change came over his whole expression. He suddenly seemed to be making an effort to throw off the effects of the whisky he had consumed. He straightened himself up, and his mouth hardened. The cigarette lolling between his lips became firmly gripped. O’Brien, watching the change in him, suddenly saw his hands clench at his sides, and understood the sudden access of resentment which the mention of Fyles’s name stirred in the man. He read into what he beheld something of the real character of the “sharp,” as he understood it.

Charlie’s reply came at last. It came briefly and coldly, and O’Brien felt the sting of the rebuff.

“Guess I can look after myself,” he said.

Then, without another word, he turned away, and walked out of the saloon.