In Tecolote, a straggling village of many dogs and swarthy, grimy-faced
children, he tarried until well after dark, making his meal of coffee,
_frijoles_, and _chili con carne_, thereafter smoking a contemplative
pipe. Abandoning the little lunch-room to the flies and silence he
crossed the road to the saloon kept by Pete Nunez, the brother of the
man whom it was Norton's present business to make answer for a crime
committed. Pete, a law-abiding citizen nowadays, principally for the
reason that he had lost a leg in his younger, gayer days, swept up his
crutch and swung across the room from the table where he was sitting to
the bar, saying a careless "Que hay?" by way of greeting.
"Hello, Pete," Norton returned quietly. "Haven't seen Vidal lately,
have you?"
Besides Vidal's brother there were a half dozen men in the room playing
cards or merely idling in the yellow light of the kerosene lamp swung
from the ceiling, men of the saloon-keeper's breed to the last man of
them. Their eyes, the slumbrous, mystery-filled orbs of their kind,
had lifted under their long lashes to regard the sheriff with seeming
indifference. Pete shrugged.
"Me, I ain't seen Vidal for a mont'," he answered briefly. "I see Jim
Galloway though. Galloway say," and Pete ran his towel idly back and
forth along the bar, "Vidal come to la Casa Blanca to-night.
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