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“Say, Johnny, what d’yeh s’pose them fellers are doen’ in there? You said Steve was goin’ to lick Lime, you did. It don’t sound much like it in there. Hear ‘um laugh,” he said viciously and regretfully. “Say, John, you sly along and peek in and see what they’re up to, an’ come an’ tell me, while I hold the horses,” he said, to hide the fact that John was doing a good deal for his benefit.

John got slowly off the wagon and hobbled on toward the saloon, stiff with the cold. As he neared the door he could hear some one talking in a loud voice, while the rest laughed at intervals in the manner of those who are listening to the good points in a story. Not daring to open the door, Johnny stood around the front trying to find a crevice to look in at. The speaker inside had finished his joke and some one had begun singing.

The building was a lean-to attached to the brewery, and was a rude and hastily constructed affair. It had only two windows; one was on the side and the other on the back. The window on the side was out of John’s reach, so he went to the back of the shanty. It was built partly into the hill, and the window was at the top of the bank. John found that by lying down on the ground on the outside he had a good view of the interior. The window, while level with the ground on the outside, was about as high as the face of a man on the inside. He was extremely wide-awake now and peered in at the scene with round, unblinking eyes.

Steve was making sport for the rest and stood leaning his elbow on the bar. He was in rare good humor, for him. His hat was lying beside him and he was in his shirt-sleeves, and his cruel gray eyes, pockmarked face and broken nose were lighted up with a frightful smile. He was good-natured now, but the next drink might set him wild. Hank stood behind the high pine bar, a broad but nervous grin on his round, red face. Two big kerosene lamps, through a couple of smoky chimneys, sent a dull red glare upon the company, which half filled the room.

If Steve’s face was unpleasant to look upon, the nonchalant, tiger-like poise and flex of his body was not. He had been dancing, it seemed, and had thrown off his coat, and as he talked he repeatedly rolled his blue shirt-sleeves up and down as though the motion were habitual to him. Most of the men were sitting around the room looking on and laughing at Steve’s antics, and the antics of one or two others who were just drunk enough to make fools of themselves. Two or three sat on an old billiard table under the window through which John was peering.

Lime sat in his characteristic attitude, his elbows upon his knees and his thumbs under his chin. His eyes were lazily raised now and then with a lion-like action of the muscles of his forehead. But he seemed to take little interest in the ribaldry of the other fellows. John measured both champions critically, and exulted in the feeling that Steve was not so ready for the row with Lime as he thought he was.

After Steve had finished his story there was a chorus of roars: “Bully for you, Steve!” “Give us another,” etc. Steve, much flattered, nodded to the alert saloon-keeper, and said: “Give us another, Hank.” As the rest all sprang up he added: “Pull out that brandy kaig this time, Hank. Trot her out, you white-livered Dutchman,” he roared, as Swartz hesitated.

The brewer fetched it up from beneath the bar, but he did it reluctantly. In the midst of the hubbub thus produced, an abnormally tall and lanky fellow known as “High” Bedloe pushed up to the bar and made an effort to speak, and finally did say solemnly: