followed by a rap on his door.
Breeze opened it to two strangers, one of whom lurched forward
unsteadily with outstretched hand. He had a handsome face and figure,
and a certain consciousness of it even in the abandon of liquor; he
had an aggressive treacherousness of eye which his potations had not
subdued. He grasped Breeze's hand tightly, but dropped it the next
moment perfunctorily as he glanced round the room.
"I told them I was bound to come in," he said, without looking at
Breeze, "and say 'Howdy!' to the man that's bin a pal to my women folks
and the kids--and acted white all through! I said to Mame, 'I reckon HE
knows who I am, and that I kin be high-toned to them that's high-toned;
kin return shake for shake and shot for shot!' Aye! that's me! So I was
bound to come in like a gen'leman, sir, and here I am!"
He threw himself in an unproffered chair and stared at Breeze.
"I'm afraid," said Breeze dryly, "that, nevertheless, I never knew who
you were, and that even now I am ignorant whom I am addressing."
"That's just it," said the second man, with a querulous protest, which
did not, however, conceal his admiring vassalage to his friend; "that's
what I'm allus telling Jim. 'Jim,' I says, 'how is folks to know you're
the man that shot Kernel Baxter, and dropped three o' them Mariposa
Vigilants? They didn't see you do it! They just look at your fancy style
and them mustaches of yours, and allow ye might be death on the girls,
but they don't know ye! An' this man yere--he's a scribe in them
papers--writes what the boss editor tells him, and lives up yere on the
roof, 'longside yer wife and the children--what's he knowin' about YOU?'
Jim's all right enough," he continued, in easy confidence to Breeze,
"but he's too fresh 'bout himself."
Mr. James Bodine accepted this tribute and criticism of his henchman
with a complacent laugh, which was not, however, without a certain
contempt for the speaker and the man spoken to. His bold, selfish eyes
wandered round the room as if in search of some other amusement than his
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