tonwood that day. He had heard that Stott was gone, and the little Indian killed, and somebody else shot up by that Texas man, but all those events were small and uninteresting in comparison with the demand of his clamoring nerves for a drink.
And nobody in town would trust him; not a soul. He had ruined his chances by his overbearing conduct while working as bouncer for Mackey. He hadn't a friend in the world. Worse than that, he hadn't a single article left that he could pledge for a drink, or raise the money on. His gun was gone, his hat was gone, his spurs were gone. A man had to keep the rest of his clothes to meet the requirements of a despised society.
It was torture to smell liquor and not be able to get it, for there was nothing in the beer kegs but the scent. Zeb had tipped them all, licked their chines, rammed his hot tongue into their bungholes in the burning hope of one dribbling drop.
And there was that barber, that snipe-shanked suds mixer, enjoying the kingdom that rightly belonged to him. Noggle never lacked a dime to buy a drink, never knew the torture of the longing for one sizzling slug of whisky to cool his burning guts.
A thought grew out of this bitter denunciation. It swelled in the vaporous brain of alcoholic lees and raised old Zeb Smith to his feet. That barber
