"Wake up there, Mick!" he roared. "I'm speaking to you! A couple of 'ryes' for the gentleman here and myself."
Another pause, momentary but effective.
"I heard you." The barkeeper spoke quietly but without the slightest change of expression, even of the eye. "I heard you, but I'm not dealing out drinks to deadbeats. Pay up, and I'll be glad to serve you."
Swift as thought Blair's hand went to his hip, and the rattle of poker-chips sympathetically ceased. A second, and a big revolver was trained fair at the dispenser of liquors.
"Curse you, Mick Kennedy!" muttered a choking voice, "when I order drinks I want drinks. Dig up there, and be lively!"
The man by the speaker's side, surprised out of his intoxication, edged away to a discreet distance; but even yet the Irishman made no move. Only the single headlight shifted in its socket until it looked unblinkingly into the blazing eyes of the gambler.
"Tom Blair," commanded an even voice, "Tom Blair, you white livered bully, put up that gun!"
Slowly, very slowly, the speaker turned,--all but the terrible Cyclopean eye,--and moved forward until his body leaned upon the bar, his face protruding over it.
"Put up that gun, I tell you!" A smile almost fiendish broke over the furrows of the rugged face. "You wouldn't dast shoot, unless perhaps it was a woman, you coward!"
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!"