Slowly, while they watched him, he counted off ten ten-dollar bank-notes, and, with a careless gesture, tossed them to a table.
"That's for one round of your rotten bootleg liquor," he said contemptuously. "Now, step out, Gallup, and show them the sort of money-grabbing porker you are. You know you haven't got the guts to save your own besmirched pride at the price of a hundred dollars."
Gallup would have sold out for far less, but Timber-Wolf was not the man to haggle over what he termed dirty pennies. He shrugged his heavy shoulders and caught up the money, counting it carefully, stuffing it into his pocket and growling:
"You're not wanted here, Standing; but any time you're fool enough to pay a hundred dollars for the privilege, I'll take the rules down for a round of drinks! Hey, Ricky!"
Standing only grunted at that, though his eyes flashed.
"I come when I please and where I please, and you know it, Young Gallup! And if you think you are the man to throw _me_ out, hop to it and don't let a little hundred dollars hold you back! Better than that; if you'll tie into me right now and chuck me out of doors, getting all your hangdogs that will take a chance with you to help you, you've got my word that I'll add a second hundred as your bonus! Or a thousand, by heaven! And right now you'll toe the scratch or back down and shut your mouth."
Gallup had never before in his life been faced down like that. And with so many men looking on! Yet in his heart, though no man had ever called him a coward, he was afraid of Timber-Wolf; mortally afraid. There was the look of death itself in the eyes flashing into his own. He sought to laugh the thing off, saying, with what semblance of fine scorn he could master:
"I am no liar," said Standing wrathfully. "And no man in all Arizona and New Mexico ever called me liar. Do you, Young Gallup?"
"Bruce!" called Sheriff Taggart sharply, for the first time speaking a word. "What's the sense of trying to start a row? Drop all this foolery and let me have a word with you."
"That's fair enough," agreed Standing. "I've no desire to break Gallup's neck so long as he leaves me alone. But make it snappy, as I have another engagement."
"I want to talk with you privately, Bruce." Taggart obviously was angry, and yet it was equally clear that when it came to dealing with the Timber-Wolf, Jim Taggart meant to hold himself well in hand.