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"Whisky for everybody, Nick!" he ordered bumptuously; and as before the little barkeeper's face wore an expression of pleasure not a whit less than that of the man whom, presently, he followed to the faro table with a bottle and four glasses.
"You . . .!" the little barkeeper's sentence was bristled out and contained along with the expletives some comparatively mild words which gave the would-be combatants to understand that any such foolishness would not be tolerated in The Polka unless he himself "'lowed it to be ne'ssary."
"Her brother Bob." After a moment's scrutiny of his friend's bewildered face, Mr. Hamlin briefly related his adventures, from the moment of his meeting Bob at the mountain-stream to the barkeeper's gossiping comment and sequel. "Therefore," he concluded, "the author of 'Underbrush' is Miss Cynthia Delatour, one of four daughters of a widow who lives two miles from here at the crossing.
They had the most delicious dainties for the taking strange breads and crackers, cheeses, sausages, sardines wonderful foods that I never saw on our meagre home-table. And once, I remember, a barkeeper mixed me a sweet temperance drink of syrup and soda-water. My father did not pay for it. It was the barkeeper's treat, and he became my ideal of a good, kind man.
Serious as was Johnson's predicament, he could not suppress a smile. In a surprisedly calm voice he told her to say that she had gone to bed. The Girl's eyes flooded with admiration. "Why, o' course that's it," she said, and turned back to the door and called through it: "I've gone to bed, Nick! I'm in bed now!" The barkeeper's answer was lost in another loud howl of the blast.
Touched by the little barkeeper's droll philosophy, the Sheriff dropped his head on his breast, while the hand which held the glass unconsciously fell to his side. "I've got it," went on Nick with enthusiasm; "you've got it; the boy's got it; the Girl's got it; the whole damn world's got it. It's all the heaven there is on earth, an' in nine cases out of ten it's hell."
Then, rolling her sleeves above her pretty arms, she mixed a cocktail in such delightful imitation of the fashionable barkeeper's dexterity that her guests were convulsed with admiration. Even Ira was struck with this revelation of a youthfulness that five years of household care had checked, but never yet subdued. He had forgotten that he had married a child.
Late that night he leaned across the sloppy bar of an inferior saloon in Stenton, and, with an uncertain wave of his hand, arrested the barkeeper's attention. "I'm here," he articulated thickly, "to see life, understand! And I can see it too money's power." The other regarded him with a brief, mechanical interest, a platitude shot suavely from hard, tobacco-stained lips.
"Keep your head level, Miller, old chap we'll hev you out of that in no time. Hurry up, somebody, and borrow the barkeeper's ropes. While I'm cuttin', throw a rope over the top, and when she commences to go, haul all together and suddenly, then 'twill clear the hut."
"I call y'u all to witness that my friend killed him in self-defense," said Bannister evenly. "Y'u all saw him fire first. Mac did not even have his gun out." "That's right," agreed one, and another added: "He got what was coming to him." "He sure did," was the barkeeper's indorsement. "He came in hunting trouble, but I reckon he didn't want to be accommodated so prompt."
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