"All right. First thing, my name's Comstock."
The keen eyes which had measured the cowboy as he came through the door were very bright upon him now. Thornton nodded. The name meant nothing to him.
"Don't get me?" laughed Comstock. "Well, well, it's a shock to vanity, but after all one's fame is a poor crippled bird that doesn't fly far." He paused a moment, then added quietly, as though this other information might help his bird "to fly." "My stamping ground's New Mexico."
Thornton's look showed nothing beyond a faint curiosity; one would have said that he was as little interested in this man's stamping ground as in his name.
"One more try," laughed Comstock easily, "and I'll give up. Two-Hand Billy Comstock.... Aha, I get you now!"
For now Buck Thornton started and his eyes did show interest and a sudden flash of surprise. For fifteen years Two-Hand Billy Comstock, United States Deputy Marshal, had been widely known throughout the great South-west, a man who asked no odds and gave no quarter, one whose name sent as chill a shiver through the hard hearts of the lawless as a sight of the gallows would have done. And this man, small, well dressed, quiet mannered, as dapper as a tailor's dummy....
"If you are Billy Comstock," grunted Thornton, "well, I'm damn' glad to know you, sir!"
"If I am?" grinned Comstock. "And why should I lie to you?"
"I'm not saying that you are lying," returned the cowboy coolly. "But I'm getting in the habit these days of being suspicious, I guess. But if you are that Comstock and want to see me, I'd come mighty close to guessing what you want. But before I do any talking I want to know."
"Sure," Comstock nodded. And then, smiling again "Only, Mr. Thornton, I'm not in the habit of carrying around a trunk full of identifications."
Billy Comstock's name he had made himself, and it had carried far. There were few men in half a dozen States in this corner of the country who did not know why he was called "Two-Hand Billy" and how he had earned his right to the nickname. His fame was that of a man who was absolutely fearless, and who carried the law where other men could not or would not carry it. To him had come the dangers, the sharp fights against odds that had seemed overwhelming, and always he had shot his way out with a gun in each hand, and no waste lead.