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Jim Taggart, his hands on his hips, was eying him like a hawk, and in Taggart's face was a dull, hot flush. Gallup, however, standing close at Taggart's side, was the first to speak. He cried out angrily:

"No man drinks with you in my house! Not as long as I live. And...."

Bruce Standing drew a wallet from his pocket.

"About twenty men here," he said, in the same slow, steady voice. "As it's a night of celebration, we'll make it a dollar a drink. That's twenty bucks, easy money, Young Gallup," he wound up with a sneer in his voice. For all men knew Gallup's cupidity, which clutched at small as well as large amounts.

But Gallup, shaken with rage, only shouted back at him:

"To hell with your twenty dollars! And with you, Bruce Standing!"

"So? Well, twenty dollars isn't much, after all, is it? Gents, we drink to-night and damn the cost! Two bones for every glass of whiskey; that's forty of the iron men, Gallup. Call Ricky with the bottles."

A couple of men laughed at that. Gallup, however, seeing himself baited, roared out: