Kite stuck out his hand. “Then we’ll skin him.”
“That’s a bargain,” Chase declared, and gripped the other’s dry and skinny fingers.
It was in this fashion that these two enemies joined hands against the common foe.
CHAPTER VI
THE WHISTLE BLOWS
THE festivities in Wint’s honor on the night before his inaugural were a great success, from every point of view.
There was nothing formal about them. They occurred in an upper room in one of the newer business blocks on Main Street. Only half a dozen young fellows attended them; but these were all chosen spirits, and congenial.
At half past nine, they were all pleasantly illuminated by their libations and the general good cheer of the occasion. At eleven, two of them were asleep quite peacefully in each other’s arms upon a couch at one side of the room. These two snored as they slept. The others were playing cards, and the refreshments which had been provided were in easy reach. Wint and Jack Routt were among those playing cards. Routt never passed a certain stage of intoxication, no matter how much he drank. He reached this stage with the first swallow.
With Wint, it was otherwise. In such matters, he progressed steadily toward a dismal end. As eleven o’clock struck, he had just passed the quarrelsome stage and was beginning to pity himself. He opened a hand with three queens, but when Routt raised his bet, Wint threw down his cards and put his head on his arms and wept because he could not win. Then he took another drink.
After a little, he cried himself to sleep.
Toward one o’clock, Routt and Hoover took Wint home to Amos Caretall’s. The streets, at that hour of the night, were utterly deserted. There was a moon, and the street lamps were unlighted as an economical consequence of this heavenly illumination. Wint was between Routt and Hoover. At times he took a sodden step or two; at other times he dragged to his knees upon the ground, wagging his head from side to side and singing huskily.