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where he might find Morton Colton, the bartender just shook his head and said, "Wouldn't know him."
    Longarm glanced down the way at the second bartender, the same man who had brought the tray in the day before. He said, "Yeah, I bet you don't."
    The second bartender gave him a hard look. He said, "Mister, your trade ain't welcome here. I'd reckon you'd do better doing your drinking other places."
    To his great distress, Longarm decided on a plan of sampling different brands of whiskey in different saloons to see if he could tell which were colored moonshine. He managed to find quite a few in several saloons. He left each one feeling like he'd just had a good drink of kerosene. He had found the whiskey, but he was still no nearer to the source.
    That evening, he went back to the hotel for a dinner of smothered steak and mashed potatoes with green beans and stewed tomatoes. Mr. Greene was not in attendance nor was any other familiar face. As he ate, Longarm reflected on the way Bob Greene had characterized the whiskey makers as inbred, mean, vicious, suspicious bushwackers. It was virtually the same description that Billy Vail had given him. He was going to have to ask, once he got back to Denver, how Billy Vail came to know so much about the breed of people who lived back in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains and tended their stills in the little hidden groves and hollows and cutbacks.
    That night, he went out again, selecting a new section of the city in which to wander, going again from saloon to saloon. Once, he sat in on a poker game for a while, but it was slow-moving and such small money that he quickly became bored. He had managed to introduce the subject of whiskey into the game, but he got no takers. It was amazing to him how close-mouthed the whole town could be on a subject that was most probably their chief source of income. Yet, to a man, the people in Little Rock seemed to be unaware of the existence of any whiskey trade. He thought possibly the next day, if he could find one, he'd hunt up a church and ask one of the preachers about it. It was his observation that outside of bartenders, preachers generally knew more about whiskey and how much of it was in their town than anybody else.
    At about ten o'clock that night, he gave up on the last saloon and started walking back toward his hotel. The Albert Pike Hotel was on Main Street, very near the center of town. As Longarm turned onto Main, returning from his wandering quest for information, he was about a block from the hotel entrance. As he cut across the street, he could see a vaguely familiar figure approaching from the opposite direction, cutting across the street just as he was. Even though it was still relatively early at ten o'clock, the town was quieter than most towns of its size that he was used to. He crossed the street, stepped up on the boardwalk, and headed for the hotel.
    The other man did likewise. As they approached each other, Longarm recognized Frank Carson. They met almost at the hotel door, both of them illuminated by the light shining through the big plate-glass windows.
    Longarm said, "Well, Mr. Carson, I'm surprised to see you out. From what you said, I thought you'd have been on down the road apiece."
    Frank Carson gave him a friendly smile. He said, "Well, Mr. Long, I thought I'd hang around a few more days and maybe get a chance to play you some more poker."
    Even though it was May, there was a nip in the night air and Frank Carson was wearing a leather coat over his vest. Longarm, who had on a corduroy jacket, said, "Well, that can damned sure be arranged, but let's not stand out in the cold. Why don't we go in and have a drink or so at the bar. Are you staying here at the hotel?"
    "Oh, yeah. I've got a room up on the fourth floor. Highest I've ever been."
    Longarm laughed faintly. He said, "If that's the highest you've ever been, then I reckon you'd better change your brand of whiskey."
    Frank Carson shook his head. "Oh, are you back