or lack of a dollar, I'd have gone to
the quarries and served three months as a convict slave. So would the
gay-cat. Count me out, for I was hopeless; but consider the gay-cat.
He might have come out, after those ninety days, pledged to a life of
crime. And later he might have broken your skull, even your skull,
with a blackjack in an endeavor to take possession of the money on
your person--and if not your skull, then some other poor and
unoffending creature's skull.

But the door was unlocked, and I alone knew it. The gay-cat and I
begged for mercy. I joined in the pleading and wailing out of sheer
cussedness, I suppose. But I did my best. I told a "story" that would
have melted the heart of any mug; but it didn't melt the heart of that
sordid money-grasper of a shack. When he became convinced that we
didn't have any money, he slid the door shut and latched it, then
lingered a moment on the chance that we had fooled him and that we
would now offer him the two dollars.

Then it was that I let out a few links. I called him a son of a toad.
I called him all the other things he had called me. And then I called
him a few additional things. I came from the West, where men knew how
to swear, and I wasn't going to let any mangy shack on a measly New
England "jerk" put it over me in vividness and vigor of language. At
first the shack tried to laugh it down. Then he made the mistake of
attempting to reply. I let out a few more links, and I cut him to the
raw and therein rubbed winged and flaming epithets. Nor was my fine
frenzy all whim and literary; I was indignant at this vile creature,
who, in default of a dollar, would consign me to three months of
slavery. Furthermore, I had a sneaking idea that he got a "drag" out
of the constable fees.

But I fixed him. I lacerated his feelings and pride several dollars'
worth. He tried to scare me by threatening to come in after me and
kick the stuffing out of me. In return, I promised to kick him in the
face while he was climbing in. The advantage of position was with me,
and he saw it. So he kept the door shut and called for help from the
rest of the train-crew. I could hear them answering and crunching
through the gravel to him. And all the time the other door was
unlatched, and they didn't know it; and in the meantime the gay-cat
was ready to die with fear.

Oh, I was a hero--with my line of retreat straight behind me. I
slanged the shack and his mates till they threw the door o