"The Tub barkeep takes a sour squinch-owl 244 look at Mike. Then he goes softly swabbin' off the counter.
"After a while he looks up an' says:
"'Which you don't notice no swirlin' drifts of snow outside, do you? You ain't been swallowed up in no blizzard, be you, comin' into town? No, my stilted, stiff-laigged sheep of the mountain, we ain't got no ice.'
"Mike, feelin' some buffaloed by the barkeep's manner, don't say no more. In silence he drinks his licker, an' then sets down at a table.
"The barkeep, with the tail of his eye, continyoos to look him over.
"'Whatever do you make of that crazy maverick,' he asks of a freighter, who's jest rolled in from Lordsburg. 'The idee of him askin' for ice in August!'
"'Mebby he's the ha'r-brained party they sends word about from Wolfville,' the freighter replies––'him who's out to crawl the Bug's hump a whole lot?'
"'That's the identical persimmon!' exclaims the barkeep, slammin' his hand on the counter. 'Which I ought to have knowed it without bein' told. I wonder if Peets, or some of them 245 other Wolfville sports, puts him up to come bully-raggin' round yere about ice to insult us?'
"The freighter allows he'll edge into a pow-wow with Mike, an' feel him out.
"Planted at the same table, the freighter an' Mike is soon as thick as thieves. They're gettin' along like two pups in a basket, when in comes a disturbin' element in the shape of one of them half-hoss half-alligator felons, whose distinguishin' characteristic is that they're allers grouchy an' hostile. That's the drawback to Red Dog. It certainly is the home camp of some of the most ornery reptiles, that a-way!