hairs, and a
none-too-pleasant-looking barkeeper who glared suspiciously at us as
we came in. A man cannot spend continuous days and nights in his
clothes, beating trains, fighting soot and cinders, and sleeping
anywhere, and maintain a good "front." Our fronts were decidedly
against us; but what did we care? I had the price in my jeans.

"Two beers," said I nonchalantly to the barkeeper, and while he drew
them, the Swede and I leaned against the bar and yearned secretly for
the arm-chairs by the stove.

The barkeeper set the two foaming glasses before us, and with pride I
deposited the ten cents. Now I was dead game. As soon as I learned my
error in the price I'd have dug up another ten cents. Never mind if it
did leave me only a nickel to my name, a stranger in a strange land.
I'd have paid it all right. But that barkeeper never gave me a chance.
As soon as his eyes spotted the dime I had laid down, he seized the
two glasses, one in each hand, and dumped the beer into the sink
behind the bar. At the same time, glaring at us malevolently, he
said:--

"You've got scabs on your nose. You've got scabs on your nose. You've
got scabs on your nose. See!"

I hadn't either, and neither had the Swede. Our noses were all right.
The direct bearing of his words was beyond our comprehension, but the
indirect bearing was clear as print: he didn't like our looks, and
beer was evidently ten cents a glass.

I dug down and laid another dime on the bar, remarking carelessly,
"Oh, I thought this was a five-cent joint."

"Your money's no good here," he answered, shoving the two dimes across
the bar to me.

Sadly I dropped them back into my pocket, sadly we yearned toward the
blessed stove and the arm-chairs, and sadly we went out the door into
the frosty night.

But as we went out the door, the barkeeper, still glaring, called
after us, "You've got scabs on your nose, see!"

I have seen much of the world since then, journeyed among strange
lands and peoples, opened many books, sat in many lecture-halls; but
to this day, though I have pondered long and deep, I have been unable
to divine the meaning in the cryptic utterance of that barkeeper in
Evanston, Wyoming. Our noses _were_ all right.

We slept that night over the boilers in an electric-lighting plant.
How we discovered that "kipping" place I can't remember. We must have
just headed for it, instinctively, as horses head for water or
carrier-pigeons head for the home-cote.