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In a remote part of the valley some five miles back of Cedar Mountain was Bylow's Corner, a group of three or four houses near the road, the log cabins of homesteaders. These men had, indeed, few pleasures in life. Their highest notion of joy was a spree; and every month or two they would import a keg of liquor, generally of a quality unfit for human consumption.
Allie Bangs had a bug on fencing, and because he and Keg used to tip over everything in the basement trying to skewer each other, they got to reading up on old French customs of producing artistic conversations and deaths and other things, and eventually they wrote one of those "Ha" and "Zounds" plays for the Dramatic Club.
"You may not know it, but right here in this dark room is where I look for the real test of success or failure," he confided to Andy, while he rocked the keg gently in the barrel. "I wish I could afford a good camera-man; but then, the most of them wouldn't work with this kind of an outfit; they'd demand all the laboratory conveniences, and that would run into money.
But Denton and I were mighty glad to see any sort of land. Besides, our keg of water was pretty low, and it was getting about time to discover the spring the chart spoke of. So we piled our camp stuff in the small boat and rowed ashore. Anderson led the way confidently enough up a dry arroyo, whose sides were clay and conglomerate.
At length I began to feel the pangs of hunger, and, to my satisfaction, I found that some considerate friend had put a few biscuits and a keg of water into the boat. With this I refreshed myself, and so did the black; and I began to hope that he was grateful to me for releasing him from the gag, and that he would bear witness to having seen me bound like the rest.
It is not easy however to say what share ostentation may have in the apparent munificence in the latter article; for when an Indian, by a good hunt, is enabled to treat the others with a keg of rum he becomes the chief of the night, assumes no little stateliness of manner, and is treated with deference by those who regale at his expense.
Bourdon stumbled and fell, and Edwards lavished some blows upon him that must have satisfied the bois brûlé that ghosts have a most solid corporeal existence. Then Edwards returned and captured the keg of powder. He assured the Lindsleys that the superstitious half-breeds would never again venture within five miles of a house that was guarded by the Holy Virgin and the devil in partnership.
When the keg was empty, brandy was brought by the kettleful and ladled out with large wooden spoons; and this was kept up until the last skin had been disposed of.
If it had not been for the decayed brands of the fire, now sunk into grey ashes, and the remnants of the festival, consisting of bones half burnt and half gnawed, and an empty keg or two, there remained no traces of Donald and his band.
Then some discreet farmer would hear a trampling of horses in his stables, and if in the morning Bet and Ball and Matchem were splashed a good deal, and tired, there was always the keg of sound spirits at the kitchen door or in one of the mangers.
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