Morgan watched a man he had never seen before enter and move over to the faro layout to stand behind Matt Burbage. The newcomer wore dusty store pants and a dust- and sweat-stained shirt. He was not heeled, was thin, not quite tall, with a narrow, clean-shaven face and a prominent bent nose. He bent over to speak to Burbage, and straightened suddenly, his lips bent into a strained grin. As he turned away and moved toward the bar, somebody cried, “Hey, Bud!”

Haggin flung himself upon the newcomer, and Curley Burne came up to slap him on the back. “Why, Bud Gannon!” Burne said. One on either side of him, they dragged him to the bar.

Morgan watched the three of them in the mirror. He had heard that Billy Gannon had a brother off somewhere. A group of miners came in, in their wool hats and faded blue clothes and heavy boots, two of them sporting red sashes — heavy, pale, bearded men. It was difficult to tell one from the other among them, but they were trade. Clay appeared behind them in his black frock coat.

Clay held the batwing doors apart as he halted for a fraction of a second, and in that fraction glanced, without even appearing to turn his head, right and left with that blue, intense and comprehensive gaze. Then, removing his black hat, he came over and sat down on the far side of the table and placed his hat on the chair beside him. “Evening,” he said.

Morgan grinned. “Is, isn’t it? And a couple or three San Pablo boys over there at the bar, too.”

“Is that so?” Clay said, with interest. “McQuown?”

“He’s supposed to show tonight.”

“Is that so?” Clay said again. He stuck out his lower lip a little, raised his eyebrows a little. “Hadn’t heard. I guess I ought to be tending to business instead of buggy-riding around.”

Now the professor’s piano playing carried well enough. Morgan could see the eyes watching Clay in the mirror. Murch had shifted the shotgun slightly, so that the muzzle was directed toward the three at the bar.

“Been a hot day,” Clay said. He propped a boot up on the chair where he had laid his hat. Beneath the black broadcloth of his coat his shirt was wilted.

“Hot,” Morgan said, nodding. As he poured whisky into the second glass he watched Clay’s pursed, half-smiling mouth beneath the thick, blond crescent of mustache. “And it looks like a hot night,” he said.

Clay grinned crookedly at him and they raised their glasses together. “How?” Clay said.

“How,” he replied, and drank. “Look at them,” he said, and indicated the people in the Glass Slipper with a nod of his head. “They are all in a twitch. If they stay around they might see a man shot dead — you or one of McQuown’s. Only there might be stray lead slung and bad for their hides. But the money’s been paid and time for the show to begin. You like this town, Clay?”

“Why, it’s just a town,” Clay said, and shrugged.

“Just a town,” Morgan said, grinning again as Jack Cade came in. “Smaller than most and about as dull. Hotter than most, and dustier, but it has got a fine pack of bad men. Not just tourists like those Tejanos in Fort James, either.”

“Who’s that one?” Clay said thoughtfully, as Cade swung on down the bar, dark-faced with a stubble of beard, his round-crowned hat exactly centered on his head, his holstered Colt swung low.

“Jack Cade,” Morgan said; he had made it his business to know who McQuown’s people were. Cade joined the others at the bar, elbowing a miner out of the way. “Next to him is Curley Burne — number two to McQuown. That’ll be Billy Gannon’s brother in the store pants, and the other is one of the Haggin twins, cousins of McQuown’s. One’s right-handed and one left. This’s the left-handed one, but I forget his name.”

Clay nodded, watching them with a slight shine now in his blue eyes, a little more color showing in his cheeks. The room had quieted again, and there was traffic moving toward the door. The doctor and Burbage left the faro layout. As they went out they encountered another bunch of miners entering. “Doc,” each miner said, as he passed the doctor. “Doc.” “Evening, Doc.” “You’ll be needed later, I hear, Doc.”

Clay grinned again. Luke Friendly came in. With him was a cocky, mean-faced little man who swaggered like a sailor walking the deck in rough weather. They joined the others, where the little man turned to glance at Clay, and spat on the floor.

“I expect that might be Pony Benner, that shot the barber a while back,” Morgan said. “I haven’t seen him in before. The big one is Friendly. By name, not nature. But watch out for Cade. He is a bad one.”

“So I hear.”

“McQuown is sitting off to let you chew your fingernails up a while. He won’t play it your way, Clay. He will play it with a back-shooter, which is his style. Watch out for Cade.”

“Why, I will play it my own way, Morg. And see if they don’t have to, too.”

Morgan shrugged and raised his glass. “How?”

“How,” Clay said, nodding, and they drank.

“I hope you have got on your gold-handled pair. There will be a lot disappointed here if they don’t get to see them flash.”

He laughed, and Clay laughed too, easily. Clay said, “Why, they are for Sunday-go-to-meeting. This is a work day.”

Carl Schroeder was approaching, and Clay got politely to his feet. “Evening, Deputy,” he said, and put out his hand. Schroeder shook it, said, “Evening, Marshal,” nodded tightly to Morgan, and sat down, pushing his hat back on his head. Above the brown of his face his forehead was a moist, pasty white. Little muscles stood out along his jaw, like the heads of upholstery tacks.

“I will stick by tonight, Marshal,” Schroeder said, in a strained voice that was almost a stutter. “I am no shakes of a gunhand, but it’ll maybe help to have me by.”

“Why, I kind of thought I could count on you, Deputy,” Clay said. He paused a moment, frowning. “But when it comes right down to it, this is no trouble of yours. You are not paid for it and I am — no offense meant.”

“Pay is not the only reason for a thing, Marshal,” Schroeder said. He looked down, scrubbing his hands together as though they itched.

Clay said, “Morg, would you call for another glass, and—”

“No, not for me. No, thanks,” the deputy said. He looked sick with dread. His back was to the bar and he tried awkwardly to glance around, and then he said, “Is Johnny Gannon with them over there, can you see, Morgan?”

“He’s there,” Morgan said, and picked up the cards again. Schroeder bared his teeth in some kind of grimace. Clay got to his feet. His Colt was out of sight beneath the skirt of his black frock coat.

“Might take a little pasear around town, Deputy,” he said. “There is no reason to sit in here and give ourselves the nerves.” Schroeder scrambled up quickly, and Clay took up his hat.

“I’ll probably clean them out myself,” Morgan said, “if they get noisy.” Schroeder stared, and Clay grinned at him. Morgan watched them leave, taking a cigar from his breast pocket and clamping his teeth down on it. Schroeder kept close as a shadow to Clay’s heels.

As soon as they had gone, Murch signaled to Basine to replace him as lookout. Murch clambered ponderously down and came over toward Morgan. He looked like a carp, with his wall eye and his great slit of a mouth.

“Something going to come off in here?” Murch said, in his gravelly voice.

“Yes.”

“How you want to handle it?”

“Tell Basine I want him behind the bar. You on the stand. They’ll play one behind him. It’ll probably be Cade. You hold on whoever it is with the shotgun and let go if he moves.”

“Holy Jumping H. Jupiter!” Murch muttered. “I can’t let that thing off, it’s crowded in here! It’ll mash half the place full. I’ll—”

“You’ll let it off if one of them makes a move at Clay’s back,” he said, through his teeth. He stared into Murch’s straight-on eye. “I don’t care who you mash.”