As to Harris and myself; what with delays, what with expenses, what with figures reduced to dispose of our plunder, we got evenly out. We got back our money; but for those fear-shaken hours of two separate perils, we were never paid.
I smuggled no more. Still, I did not relinquish my pious purpose to despoil that public treasury Egyptian quoted heretofore. Neither did I give up the Customs as a rich field of illicit endeavor. But my methods changed. I now decided that I, myself, would become an Inspector, like unto the useful Lorns, and make my fortune from the opulent inside. I procured the coveted appointment, for I could bring power to bear, and later I’ll tell you of The Emperor’s Cigars.
When I was in my room that night, making ready for bed, I could still hear the soft, cold fingers of the snow upon the pane. What a storm was that! Our landlord who had been boy and man and was now gray in that old inn, declared how he had never witnessed the smothering fellow to it.
The following day, while still and bright and no snow to fall, showed a temperature below zero. The white blockade still held us fast, and now the desperate cold was come to be the ally of the snow. Departure was never a question.
As we kicked the logs into a cheerful uproar of sparks, and drew that evening about the great fireplace, it was the Old Cattleman to break conversational ground.
“Do you-all know,” said he, “I shore feels that idle this evenin’ it’s worse’n scand’lous—it’s reedic’lous.” Here he threw himself back in his armchair and yawned. “Pardon these yere demonstrations of weariness, gents,” he observed; “they ain’t aimed at you none. That’s the fact, though; this amazin’ sensation of bein’ held a prisoner is beginnin’ to gnaw at me a heap. Talk of ‘a painted ship upon a painted ocean,’ like that poem sharp wrote of! Why that vessel’s sedyoolously employed compared to us!”
“You should recall,” remarked the Jolly Doctor, “how somewhere it is said that whatever your hand finds to do, you should do it with all your heart. Now, I would say the counsel applies to our present position. Since we must needs be idle, let us be idle heartily and happily, and get every good to lie hidden in what to me, at least, is a most pleasant companionship.”
“I shore unites with you,” responded the Old Cattleman, “in them script’ral exhortations to do things with all your heart. It was Wild Bill Hickox’s way, too; an’ a Christian adherence to that commandment, not only saves Bill’s life, but endows him with the record for single-handed killin’s so far as we-all has accounts.”
“Is it a story?” asked the Red Nosed Gentleman. “Once in a while I relish a good blood and thunder tale.”