tened with foam which gleamed like frosted silver in the brilliant
moonlight. The trees were dark and tall about him and loomed overhead
against the starlit sky, and the broad high moon threw a thick tracery
of shadows on the dusty white road where the horses stood. Only the
rhythmic flow of the broad, swift river, with the occasional uneasy
movement of the horses under their creaking harnesses or the dull noise
of the shouting men within the shanty, was to be heard.

John nestled down into the robes and took to dreaming of the lovely lady
he had seen, and wondered if, when he became a man, he should have a
wife like her. He was awakened by Frank, who was rousing him to serve a
purpose of his own. John was ten and Frank fifteen; he rubbed his sleepy
eyes and rose under orders.

"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
f