would have fallen back in his chair if Mr. Kelley had not caught him and
placed him steadily on his feet. When he was fairly up, he was all
right, and made his way out of the house and around the corner, closely
followed by Mr. Kelley and Tom. Presently he stopped, and curled up
behind a water-butt, the mud spattered thick on his torn clothing, his
empty holster and the stump of his crippled arm thrown out recklessly by
his side, lay all that was left of Black Dan. Tom saw in a minute where
he had got his cognomen. His complexion was swarthy and his hair and
whiskers were as black as midnight, but for all that he had been a very
handsome man. He was dead drunk, and Mr. Kelley saw that all attempts to
arouse him would be useless.

"Why didn't you put him in a bed?" asked Tom, in accents of disgust.

"He wouldn't stay there," replied Mose. "That is the only place he will
stay, and there is where we take him as soon as he shows any desire to
go to sleep."

"Let's go away," said Tom. "I'll never drink a drop of whiskey as long
as I live."

"It would be useless to try to awake him," said Mr. Kelley. "Mose, you
tell him that as soon as he wakes up we want to see him down to the
Eldorado, where we are stopping. We want to see him particularly. You
can remember that much, can't you?"

"I can, sir," replied Mose, hastily pocketing the dollar which Kelley
thrust out to him. "I'll send him down as soon as he comes to himself."

"It always comes hard for one to see a man done up in that style," said
Mr. Kelley, as he and Tom bent their steps toward the Eldorado. "It
makes me hate whiskey worse than I did before."

Tom had seen so much of the little town of Fort Hamilton that he had
some doubts about going to the Eldorado. Their little interview with
Black Dan, if such it could be called, had taken all the conversation
out of them; but when they entered the living-room of the hotel, and saw
no semblance of a bar, and the men who were playing cards were doing it
for fun, and not for money, and there was no sign of a drunken man
around, his spirits rose wonderfully, and he walked up and placed his
valise on the counter.

"Ah! here you are," exclaimed Stanley, coming up at that moment. "I
wasn't able to get a room with four beds in it, but I have engaged one
end of the dining-room, so that we can all be together to-night."

"Full up to the top notch," said the clerk. "Put it there, Mr. Kelley.
How are you, Arrow-foot? This y