powerful outraged wid me ef I let you go home 'thout it!"

Jess left the porch to have a word with his man, and during the minutes
he was away Dale watched him with serious interest. There was something
more on the mountaineer's mind which had not been said; some further
part of his duty lay before him; so, as the sheriff returned, and at the
same moment Zack reappeared with refreshments, he announced:

"An' there was Tyse Brislow I killed on the raft goin' down to
Frankfo't!"

"Good Lawd, Marse Dale," the negro exclaimed in terror, "is you still
tellin' 'bout all dem mens you'se shot up?"

The sheriff poured his libation, swallowed it, and wiped his long
mustache on the back of his hand. Then he said: "U-um! A-ah!" Whereupon
Zack poured another and passed it to him. Old Zack did not understand
the drift of things in the least, but he did know that this
thirty-year-old bourbon of the Colonel's was a tremendously potent
mollifier in all times of stress. Jess held the glass fondly up to the
light, and was more careful now to brush away his mustache. It evidently
dawned on him that the flavor of the first "three fingers" had been
neglected through haste.

"I don't remember Tyse," he said at length, reaching for one of Zack's
store cigars. "When was that?"

"Three years before," Dale answered.

"Three yeahs befoh Tusk?"

"No, three years before Bill."

"Wall, I'll be--heah, Zack, give me another snifter!" Jess nervously
drank it, handed back the glass and looked at Dale. "In my jedgment, the
statters of limintation is clean busted on that case, too. But I'll
jest tell you as a friend, that if you go resurrectin' any moh of them
man slaughters--I don't care if they're older'n the 'sassination of
Garfield--I'll hang you for bein' a plain damn fool." With this he
uttered a loud guffaw, but once more grew sober and laid his hand on
Dale's shoulder: "Don't you go killin' no moh fellers 'round heah! I do
mean that! Leastwise, don't do it while you're stayin' at the Cunnel's.
It ain't right to his folks, an' I won't stand for it!"

"Then Tusk'd better keep away," the mountaineer grumbled.

"Wall, if the Cunnel don't want him 'round, I can mighty easy give him a
tip to vamoose--but you let me 'tend to it, understand? Now," he
chuckled, "I'd better git back an' unlock Brent from them steps!"

So it was that, when he mounted and rode away, his mind was distinctly
on Brent and the caressing quality of the Colonel's thirt