I said one should go, and I say so still."
"Do you?" he sneered. "I guess you'd go alone, wouldn't you? to bring
Williams in?"
"If I were paid for it I should," was my heedless retort. As I spoke his
face grew white with such passion that I instinctively put up my hands
to defend myself, thinking he was about to attack me. The involuntary
movement may have seemed boyish to him, for thought came into his eyes,
and his face relaxed; moving away he said quietly:
"I'll set up drinks, boys."
They grouped themselves about him and drank, leaving me isolated. But
this, now my blood was up, only added to the exasperation I felt at his
contemptuous treatment, and accordingly I walked to the bar, and as the
only unoccupied place was by Johnson's side I went there and said,
speaking as coolly as I could:
"Though no one asks me to drink I guess I'll take some whisky, bar-
keeper, if you please." Johnson was standing with his back to me, but
when I spoke he looked round, and I saw, or thought I saw, a sort of
curiosity in his gaze. I met his eye defiantly. He turned to the others
and said, in his ordinary, slow way:
"Wall, good night, boys; I've got to go. It's gittin' late, an' I've had
about as much as I want."
Whether he alluded to the drink or to my impertinence I was unable to
divine. Without adding a word he left the room amid a chorus of "Good
night, Sheriff!" With him went Martin and half-a-dozen more.
I thought I had come out of the matter fairly well until I spoke to some
of the men standing near. They answered me, it is true, but in
monosyllables, and evidently with unwillingness. In silence I finished
my whisky, feeling that every one was against me for some inexplicable
cause. I resented this and stayed on. In a quarter of an hour the rest
of the crowd had departed, with the exception of Morris and a few of the
same kidney.
When I noticed that these gamblers, outlaws by public opinion, held away
from me, I became indignant. Addressing myself to Morris, I asked:
"Can you tell me, sir, for you seem to be an educated man, what I have
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