the woodpile behind the shop. And it was a well-known fact that Piney
never used a two-by-four on any animal other than a mule. But this by
the way.

In the barroom of the Happy Heart Saloon there were only two customers
and the bartender. One of the former, a brown-haired, sunburnt young
man with ingenuous blue eyes, was singing:

"_Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,
An' merrily jump the stile O!
Yore cheerful heart goes all the day,
Yore sad tires in a mile O_!"

Mr. Racey Dawson, having successfully sung the first verse, rested
both elbows on the bar and grinned at the bartender. That worthy
grinned back, and, knowing Mr. Dawson, slid the bottle along the bar.

"Have one yoreself, Bill," Mr. Dawson nodded to the bartender.
"Whu--where's Swing? Oh, yeah."

Mr. Dawson, head up, chest out, stepping high, and walking very
stiffly as befitted a gentleman somewhat over-served with liquor,
crossed the barroom to where bristle-haired Swing Tunstall sat on a
chair and slumbered, his head on his arms and his arms on a table.

Mr. Dawson stooped and blew into Mr. Tunstall's right ear. Mr.
Tunstall began to snore gently. Growing irritated by this continued
indifference on the part of Mr. Tunstall, Mr. Dawson seized the chair
by rung and back and incontinently dumped Mr. Tunstall all abroad on
the saloon floor.

Mr. Tunstall promptly hitched himself into a corner and drifted deeper
into slumber.

Mr. Dawson turned a perplexed face on the bartender.

"Now what you gonna do with a feller like that?" Mr. Dawson asked,
plaintively.

Mr. Jack Richie, manager of the Cross-in-a-box ranch, entering at the
moment, temporarily diverted Mr. Dawson's attention. For Mr. Dawson
had once ridden for the Cross-in-a-box outfit. Hence he was moved
literally to fall upon the neck of Mr. Richie.

"Lean on yore own breakfast," urged Mr. Richie, studiously dissembling
his joy at sight of his old friend, and carefully steering Mr. Dawson
against the bar. "Here, I know what you need. Drink hearty, Racey."

"'S'on me," declared Mr. Dawson. "Everythin's on me. I gug-got money,
I have, and I aim to spend it free an' plenty, 'cause there's more
where I'm goin'. An' I ain't gonna earn it punchin' cows, neither."

"Don't do anything rash," Mr. Richie advised, and took advantage of a
friend's privilege to be insulting. "I helped lynch a road-agent only
last month."

"Which the huh-holdup business is too easy for a live man," opined Mr