"He's on a crook lay," he told himself after a while. And the thought brightened his outlook upon life, and helped to banish some of his pessimism.
The chief feature of interest for him lay in the fact that the men foregathered were a collection of those who belonged to the "something-for-nothing" class, as he graphically described them. And he observed, too, that Beasley was carefully shepherding them. There were a few of the older hands of the camp, but these seemed to have less interest for his boss. At least he showed far less consideration for them. And it quickly became evident that the whole afternoon's object was the adequate ingratiation and stimulation of these dregs of frontier life.
This the bartender saw quite clearly. For the rest he was content to wait. He had spent most of his life in thus waiting and watching the nefarious schemes of unscrupulous men.
The heat was overpowering. It was almost an effort to breathe, let alone move about. The men lolled, propped against the baulks of timber supporting the veranda roof, stretched out on benches, or crouching on the raised edge of the wooden flooring. One and all were in a state of wiltering in the stewing heat, from which only an intermittent flow of fiery spirit could rouse them.
Beasley was the one exception to this general condition of things. Mentally he was particularly alert. And, what is more, his temper, usually so irritable and fiery, was reduced to a perfect level of good humor.
For some moments talk had died out. Then in a sudden fit of irritability Abe Allinson kicked a loose stone in the direction of the tethered horses.
"Say," he observed, "this 'minds one o' the time we struck color at the hill."
His eyes wandered toward the gathering shadows, slowly obscuring the grim sides of Devil's Hill. His remark was addressed to no one in particular.
Beasley took him up. It was his purpose to keep these men stirring.
"Why, the heat. Say, git a peek at that sky. Look yonder. The sun. Get them durned banks o' cloud swallerin' it right up atop o' them hills. Makes you think, don't it? That's storm. It's comin' big--an' before many hours."
"For which we'll all be a heap thankful." Beasley laughed. "Another day of this an' I'll be done that tender a gran'ma could eat me."