“I’m bettin’ you took your draw off’n th’ top, too,” Vogel snarled across the table at Nisbet, and tilted the pot again.
Nisbet called. He had aces over kings. The cowpuncher had three nines.
Vogel laughed noisily as he raked in the chips.
“ ’F I could keep a sheriff behind you t’ watch you all th’ time, I’d do somethin’ for myself!”
Nisbet pretended to be busy straightening his chips. I sympathized with him. He had played his hand rotten—but how else can you play against a drunk?
“How d’you like our little town?” Red Wheelan asked me.
“I haven’t seen much of it yet,” I stalled. “The hotel, the lunch-counter—they’re all I’ve seen outside of here.”
Wheelan laughed.
“So you met the Jew? That’s Slim’s friend!”
Everybody except Nisbet laughed, including Slim Vogel.
“Slim tried to beat the Jew out of two bits’ worth of Java and sinkers once. He says he forgot to pay for ’em, but it’s more likely he sneaked out. Anyways, the next day, here comes the Jew, stirring dust into the ranch, a shotgun under his arm. He’d lugged that instrument of destruction fifteen miles across the desert, on foot, to collect his two bits. He collected, too! He took his little two bits away from Slim right there between the corral and the bunkhouse—at the cannon’s mouth, as you might say!”
Slim Vogel grinned ruefully and scratched one of his big ears.