unity to refresh
themselves at his expense.

A thick, heavy tumbler, so cloudy and begrimed as to be almost opaque,
was filled from a large jug placed conveniently upon a sack of
potatoes, and passed from one to the other, each absorbing little or
much as the thirst was upon him, and passing it on to his neighbor.

Daddy Dunnigan offered it to Bill along with the advice; but the latter
ungraciously refused and, turning abruptly away, shouldered his pack
and proceeded to select his "hotel."

"Wonder who's he?" remarked Hod Burrage as he lazily resumed his seat.

"Too damned upity to suit me!" vociferated Creed, Hilarity's
self-alleged bad man, with a fierce exhalation that dislodged a thin
volley of cracker-crumbs from his overhanging mustache. "A heap too
damned upity for this camp, says I."

He shook a hairy fist menacingly toward the door through which the man
had departed. "It's lucky for him it was old Daddy there 'stead of me
he wouldn't drink with or I'd of went to the floor with him an' teached
him his manners."

"Naw ye wouldn't, Creed," said the old man. "Ye'd done jest loike ye
done--set there atop yer barr'l an' blinked. An' when he'd went out
ye'd blowed an' bragged an' blustered, an' then fizzled out like a wet
fuse. 'Stead of which Oi predic' that the young feller's a real
man--once he gets strung out. Anyways, Oi bet he does his foightin'
whiles the other feller's there 'stead of settin' 'round an' snortin'
folks' whisky full o' cracker-crumbs."

He gazed ruefully into his half-filled glass.

"Throw it out, Daddy, an' have one on me," offered Burrage, reaching
for the jug.

With a sly wink toward the others, the old man drained the glass at a
gulp and passed it innocently to be refilled.

"I'll let him go this time," rumbled Creed with a frown. "He's headin'
for Buck Moncrossen's camp--Moncrossen'll break him!"

"Or he'll break Moncrossen!" interrupted Daddy, bringing his crutch
down upon the floor. "The one camp'll not hold the two o' thim f'r
long. Heed ye now, Oi predic' there'll be hell a poppin' on Blood
River, an' be this time a year fr' now one o' thim two'll be broke f'r
good an' all, an', not to mention no names, it won't be yon stranger."

The strong liquor had loosened the tongue of the ordinarily silent old
man and he continued:

"Oi catched his eye fair; an' 'tis the eye of a foightin' man--an eye,
the loike o' which Oi ain't seen since Oi looked f'r the last time in
the dead