Stillwater hotel. Discussions in that long, low bar-room, where
the latest village scandal always came to receive the finishing
gloss, were apt to be hot. In their criticism of outside men and
measures, as well as in their mutual vivisections, there was an
unflinching directness among Mr. Snelling's guests which is not to be
found in more artificial grades of society. The popular verdict on
young Shackford's conduct was as might not have been predicted,
strongly in his favor. He had displayed pluck, and pluck of the
tougher fibre was a quality held in so high esteem in Stillwater that
any manifestation of it commanded respect. And young Shackford had
shown a great deal; he had made short work of the most formidable man
in the yard, and given the rest to understand that he was not to be
tampered with. This had taken many by surprise, for hitherto an
imperturbable amiability had been the leading characteristic of
Slocum's manager.

"I didn't think he had it in him," declared Dexter.

"Well, ye might," replied Michael Hennessey. "Look at the lad's
eye, and the muscles of him. He stands on his own two legs like a
monumint, so he does."

"Never saw a monument with two legs, Mike."

"Didn't ye? Wait till ye're layin' at the foot of one. But ye'll
wait many a day, me boy. Ye'll be lucky if ye're supploid with a
head-stone made out of a dale-board."

"Couldn't get a wooden head-stone short of Ireland, Mike."
Retorted Dexter, with a laugh. "You'd have to import it."

"An' so I will; but it won't be got over in time, if ye go on
interruptin' gintlemen when they're discoorsin'. What was I sayin',
any way, when the blackguard chipped in?" continued Mr. Hennessey,
appealing to the company, as he emptied the ashes from his pipe by
knocking the bowl in the side of his chair.

"You was talking of Dick Shackford's muscle," said Durgin, "and
you never talked wider of the mark. It doesn't take much muscle, or
much courage either, to knock a man about when he's in liquor. The
two wasn't fairly matched."

"You are right there, Durgin," said Stevens, laying down his
newspaper. "They weren't fairly matched. Both men have the same
pounds and inches, but Torrini had a weapon and that mad strength
that comes to some folks with drink. If Shackford hadn't made a neat
twist on the neckerchief, he wouldn't have got off with a scratch."

"Shackford had no call to lay hands on him."

"There you are wrong, Durgin," replied Stevens. "Torrin