House, and beyond the circle of Steptoe and his friends, who were a
distinct party and strangers to the town, there was no excitement.
Indeed, the hotel proprietor might have confounded them together, and,
perhaps, Van Loo was not far wrong in his belief that their identity had
not been suspected. Nor were Steptoe's followers very much concerned in
an episode in which they had taken part only at the suggestion of their
leader, and which had terminated so tamely. That they would have liked
a "row," in which Jack Hamlin would have been incidentally forced to
disgorge his winnings, there was no doubt, but that their interference
was asked solely to gratify some personal spite of Steptoe's against Van
Loo was equally plain to them. There was some grumbling and outspoken
criticism of his methods.

This was later made more obvious by the arrival of another guest for
whom Steptoe and his party were evidently waiting. He was a short, stout
man, whose heavy red beard was trimmed a little more carefully than when
he was first known to Steptoe as Alky Hall, the drunkard of Heavy Tree
Hill. His dress, too, exhibited a marked improvement in quality and
style, although still characterized in the waist and chest by the
unbuttoned freedom of portly and slovenly middle age. Civilization had
restricted his potations or limited them to certain festivals known as
"sprees," and his face was less puffy and sodden. But with the accession
of sobriety he had lost his good humor, and had the irritability and
intolerance of virtuous restraint.

"Ye needn't ladle out any of your forty-rod whiskey to me," he said
querulously to Steptoe, as he filed out with the rest of the party
through the bar-room into the adjacent apartment. "I want to keep my
head level till our business is over, and I reckon it wouldn't hurt you
and your gang to do the same. They're less likely to blab; and there are
few doors that whiskey won't unlock," he added, as Steptoe turned the
key in the door after the party had entered.

The room had evidently been used for meetings of directors or political
caucuses, and was roughly furnished with notched and whittled armchairs
and a single long deal table, on which were ink and pens. The men sat
down around it with a half-embarrassed, half-contemptuous attitude of
formality, their bent brows and isolated looks showing little community
of sentiment and scarcely an attempt to veil that individual selfishness
that was prominent. St