as so little by way of diversion
in Eagle, the boys had to get drunk in order to punctuate a paragraph in
their life. There was not a disengaged woman in the burg, and bad whisky
was merely a sad substitute for romance. Therefore the settlers who
chanced to meet this bunch of herders in the outskirts of Eagle River
that night walked wide of them, for they gave out the sounds of battle.

They could all ride like Cossacks, notwithstanding their dizzy heads,
and though they waved about in their saddles like men of rubber, their
faithful feet clung to their stirrups like those of a bat to its perch.
In camp they scuffled, argued, ran foot-races, and howled derisive
epithets at the cook, who was getting supper with drunken gravity, using
pepper and salt with lavish hand.

Into the midst of this hullabaloo Roy, the cow-boss, rode, white with
rage and quite sober.

"I'll kill that old son of a gun one of these days," said he to Henry
Ring.

"Kill who?"

"That postmaster. If he wasn't a United States officer, I'd do it now."

"What's the matter? Wouldn't he shuffle the mail fer you?"

"Never lifted a finger. '_Nothing_,' he barked out at me. Didn't even
look up till I let loose on him."

"What did he do then?"

"Poked an old Civil War pistol out of the window and told me to hike."

"Which you did?"

"Which I did, after passing him a few compliments. 'Lay down your
badge,' I says, 'come out o' your den, and I'll pepper you so full of
holes that your hide won't hold blue-joint hay.' And I'll do it, too,
the old hound!"

"But you got out," persisted Ring, maliciously.

"I got out, but I tell you right now he's got something coming to him.
No mail-sifter of a little two-for-a-cent town like Eagle is goin' to
put it all over me that way and not repent of it. I've figured out a
scheme to get even with him, and you have got to help."

This staggered Henry, who began to side-step and limp. "Count me out on
that," said he. "The old skunk treated me just about the same way. I
don't blame you; a feller sure has a right to have his postmaster make a
bluff at shuffling the deck. But, after all--"

However, in the end the boss won his most trusted fellows to his plan,
for he was a youth of power, and besides they had all been roiled by the
grizzled, crusty old official, and were quite ready to take a hand in
his punishment.

Roy developed his plot. "We'll pull out of camp about midnight, and ride
round to the east, sneak