it so," replied Charterhouse, noncommittal. He was about to pour himself a drink when the heavy personage reached over and thrust the bottle away, lifting one finger to the barkeep. "My personal brand, Jim." He turned to Charterhouse again. "No offense. Make it a point to always greet strangers in my establishment. Nero Studd is the name, and pleased to meet you."
"Charterhouse is mine."
They shook gravely, Clint looking down slightly. Nero Studd wore a black serge suit that wrinkled at all his thick joints and a white shirt that needed changing. He was a swart man with one black cowlick curling upon a glistening forehead. Smoke-colored eyes sat far back in sockets overhung with bushing brows, and a nose, seemingly without cartilage, splayed against the upper lip. This irregularity of features conspired to give him the character of some barroom bruiser, which was only partly alleviated by the bluff cordiality he displayed. "Try a little of that liquor. On me. Charterhouse was the name? I knew some Charterhouses down on the Border."
Charterhouse drank with due deliberation. "Mighty potent after a long ride. I'm obliged to you, sir. I never knew anybody of my name in the region you mention."
The nearby loiterers were listening closely; the hum of talk had definitely subsided. Nero Studd rubbed his oil-damp cheeks. "Well, names don't always mean so much. Come to think, I rode once with another Charterhouse in Colorado."
"They say it is a nice state and sometimes cool," was Charterhouse's agreeable and vague response.
Studd's eyes kept lifting to Charterhouse's face and falling away. "Well, consider this your stamping ground when in Angels. If there's anything I can ever do, call on me." He waved aside an invitation to drink. "Thanks, but no. You'll understand if I imbibed my own poison I'd be under the tables in no time."
"Obliged for the offer," said Charterhouse. "I will remember—" He stopped short as a robust war-whoop diverted his attention toward the door. In staggered a brawny, grinning young fellow clasping an enormous slab of granite rock against his chest. He left it fall crashing to the floor and stepped back to drench the moisture from his face and chuckle admiringly at his own effort. "Now I got something you buzzards can sink your teeth in."
"You'll bust the hell out of my floor," said Nero Studd, not so cordially.
"Yeah? Well, I spend enough money in this dump to floor it with diamonds," replied the roly-poly young fellow. His eyes searched the room. "Now I want something to prop this monster up with. I'll show you a trick to grow hair on the chest." Going behind the bar, he serenely appropriated four fresh packs of playing cards and went back to the rock. Using the card packs as supports, he created a small space beneath the rock. Sitting on his haunches, he slipped one broad paw into this space and looked about him with a sparkle of irrepressible humor. "Now observe what a man can do, my children."
He had the full attention of everybody. Somebody muttered, "Bet ten dollars that fool Heck Seastrom will fall flat on his south end." Young Seastrom only grinned and squared his enormous shoulders to the rock. His palm pressed up against the weight; Charterhouse saw all the rope-like muscles of the fellow's chest, arms and neck stand out against a reddening skin. There was an enormous gust of breath. The rock rose by degrees, shoulder high and then soared overhead as Seastrom stood erect. Sweat poured down his cheeks but he was still grinning when he let the rock smash to the floor again. "Now...you...curly-tailed wolves!" he panted. "Try that on your big bazoo! Drinks on me—if any man boosts it!" He draped himself on the bar and stared fondly at the rock while fighting for wind.
"You cracked a board," stated Nero Studd, glumly. "Why don't you save some of that steam for honest labor?"
"We will now pray," jeered Heck Seastrom amiably. "Brother Studd will read the Bible lesson and lead the singing. Ain't that a stem-winder of a stunt? Who's a-going to try it? Don't be bashful."
One of the crowd kicked the rock tentatively and stepped back, but there were no takers. Somebody in the background murmured softly, "It ain't always a matter of muscles, Seastrom. There's other ways."
The remark hung strangely in the room, intensifying the silence. Clint Charterhouse felt more strongly the undercurrent of antagonism. Everybody stood still; faces ranked darkly in the shaded room, a sibilant breath sheered the sultry atmosphere, and then men shifted uneasily. Nero Studd's dark face turned slowly around the semicircle, deliberately blank.
"I was a-waiting for a crack like that," drawled young Heck Seastrom indolently. "In answer to which I will say there sure is plenty of other ways. Hiding behind the brush, for example, and taking pot shots. Was that the way you thought of, fella?"
Clint Charterhouse felt a pull of admiration for Seastrom's easy-going manner. The burly young puncher bubbled over with vital humor; and not even the threat of trouble could change him much. But Nero Studd suddenly shifted and broke the dangerous moment, speaking with a gruff jest. "Wait till Buck Manners comes around, Seastrom. He'll peg that trick of yours right off the bat."
"Will he?" challenged Seastrom. "Say, I figured out this stunt with just him in mind. Blame near busted my back finding a rock heavy enough, just to stop that particular gent. Wait and see."
"A month's pay he can lift it," offered Studd.
"Took," agreed Heck Seastrom. "I got something finally which is sure a-going to frazzle him. If it don't, I'll be the cross- eyed son of a cross-eyed father."
Traffic at the bar resumed and Nero Studd moved through the room, passing a word here and there, occasionally resting his heavy arm on some man's shoulder. Clint Charterhouse let his attention follow this saloon proprietor for quite a while; then he turned to a barkeep. "Give me a pint of straight, uncut alcohol."
The barkeep was diverted out of his heavy indifference. "Must be packing a big thirst," said he. But Charterhouse paid for the pint and walked silently out of the place with the bottle in his hand. Crossing the plaza, he went down the stable alley to his horse and began to rub the alcohol on the animal's back.
Over in front of the saloon a pair of men slouched against a porch and watched him.
"Massaging that horse with good liquor," said one. "Must like that horse," said the other, narrowing his lids.
"Must be a real good horse," added the first. They exchanged solemn glances. Number One nodded slightly at Number Two.
––––––––
II
AT the northeast corner of the plaza stood Madame LeSeur's house, which was all that Casabella could claim in the line of hotel, eating place and rendezvous for social affairs. Madame was a stout square woman with traces of former beauty, and a witty, sharp-tongued kindness. It was common belief that in earlier days she had been the toast of a dance hall in far off Deadwood, a belief she neither confirmed nor denied. Not that it mattered here, for Casabella implicitly believed anybody's past was his or her own affair. All it positively knew was that Madame LeSeur had drifted into Angels, built this ramshackle place with a three-sided porch, divided the second story into innumerable cubicles for sleeping purposes, and arranged the downstairs into kitchen, dining room and a vast lobby with crystal chandeliers.
According to Madame's own statement, the bedrooms were of two kinds. Those large enough for a horse to turn around in were "double" and worth fifty cents the sleep. Those too narrow to pass the horse-turning test were "singles" at two bits the throw. Many a puncher, whose last alcoholic remembrance had been of slumping into the watering trough of the plaza, had wakened in one of Madame's rooms, charitably housed by her orders. To all such gentlemen's embarrassed thanks she invariably retorted that business was business and she had to fill up her house one way or another; and the bill would be a quarter-dollar, if you please, with no charge for cartage.
The lobby had been the scene of famous events, and today another was in the making. For in this lobby were gathered men, ranchers and townsmen, bent on threshing out a question never yet solved in Casabella—the question