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“Gen’lmun, Steve, say, gen’lmun, do’n’ less mix our drinks!”

This was received with boisterous delight, in which Bedloe could not see the joke, and looked feebly astonished.

Just at this point John received such a fright as entirely took away his powers of moving or breathing, for something laid hold of his heels with deadly grip. He was getting his breath to yell when a familiar voice at his ear said, in a tone somewhere between a whisper and a groan:

“Say, what they up to all this while? I’m sick o’ wait’n’ out there.”

Frank had become impatient; as for John, he had been so absorbed by the scenes within, he had not noticed how the frosty ground was slowly stiffening his limbs and setting his teeth chattering. They were both now looking in at the window. John had simply pointed with his mittened, stubby thumb toward the interior, and Frank had crawled along to a place beside him.

Mixing the drinks had produced the disastrous effect which Hank and Bedloe had anticipated. The fun became uproarious. There were songs and dances by various members of the Nagle gang, but Lime’s crowd, being in the minority, kept quiet, occasionally standing treat as was the proper thing to do.

But Steve grew wilder and more irritable every moment. He seemed to have drunk just enough to let loose the terrible force that slept in his muscles. He had tugged at his throat until the strings of his woolen shirt loosened, displaying the great, sloping muscles of his neck and shoulders, white as milk and hard as iron. His eyes rolled restlessly to and fro as he paced the floor. His panther-like step was full of a terrible suggestiveness. The breath of the boys at the window came quicker and quicker. They saw he was working himself into a rage that threatened momentarily to break forth into a violence. He realized that this was a crisis in his career; his reputation was at stake.

Young as John was, he understood the whole matter as he studied the restless Steve, and compared him with his impassive hero, sitting immovable.

“You see Lime can’t go away,” he explained, breathlessly, to Frank, in a whisper, “’cause they’d tell it all over the country that he backed down for Steve. He daresn’t leave.”

“Steve ain’t no durn fool,” returned the superior wisdom of Frank, in the same cautious whisper, keeping his eyes on the bar-room. “See Lime there, cool as a cucumber. He’s from the pineries, he is.” He ended in a tone of voice intended to convey that fighting was the principal study of the pineries, and that Lime had graduated with the highest honors. “Steve ain’t a-go’n’ to pitch into him yet awhile, you bet y’r bottom dollar; he ain’t drunk enough for that.”

Each time the invitation for another drink was given, they noticed that Lime kept on the outside of the crowd, and some one helped him to his glass. “Don’t you see he ain’t drinkin’. He’s throwin’ it away,” said Frank; “there, see! He’s foolun’ ’em; he ain’t a-go’n’ to be drunk when Steve tackles him. Oh, there’ll be music in a minute or two.”

Steve now walked the floor, pouring forth a flood of profanity and challenges against men who were not present. He had not brought himself to the point of attacking the unmoved and silent giant. Some of the younger men, and especially the pleader against mixed drinks, had succumbed, and were sleeping heavily on the back end of the bar and on the billiard table. Hank was getting anxious, and the forced smile on his face was painful to see. Over the whole group there was a singular air of waiting. No one was enjoying himself, and all wished that they were on the road home, but there was no way out of it now. It was evident that Lime purposed forcing the beginning of the battle on Steve. He sat in statuesque repose.