“’Twere nothin’,” he answered on the defensive, “but a few drops of vaniller and some arnicy left over from that sprain. You oughtn’t to feel hard toward me,” he quavered, wilting under the unfriendly eyes. “I’d a passed it if there’d been enough to go aroun’.”
“An’ after all we’ve done fer ye,” said Lannigan, “makin’ ye Jestice of the Peace to keep ye off the town.”
“Jedge,” said Uncle Bill deliberately, “you’re gittin’ almost no-account enough to be a Forest Ranger. I aims to write to Washington when your term is out and git you in the Service.”
The Judge jumped up as though he had been stung.
“Bill, we been friends for twenty year, an’ I’ll take considerable off you, but I want you to understan’ they’r a limit. You kin call me a wolf, er a Mormon, er a son-of-a-gun, but, Bill, you can’t call me no Forest Ranger! Bill,” pleadingly, and his face crumpled in sudden tears, “you didn’t mean that, did you? You wouldn’t insult an ol’, ol’ frien’?”
“You got the ear-marks,” Uncle Bill replied unmoved. “For a year now you’ve walked forty feet around that tree that fell across the trail to your cabin rather than stop and chop it out. You sleeps fourteen hours a day and eats the rest. The hardest work you ever do is to draw your money. Hell’s catoots! It’s a crime to keep a born Ranger like you off the Department’s pay-roll.”
“You think I’m drunk now and I’ll forgit. Well—I won’t.” The Judge shook a tremulous but belligerent fist. “I’ll remember what you said to me the longest day I live, and you’ve turned an ol’, ol’ frien’ into an enemy. Whur’s that waumbat coat what was hangin’ here day ’fore yistiday?”
In offended dignity the Judge took the waumbat coat and retreated to the furthermost end of the office, where he covered himself and went to sleep in the plush barber-chair.
In the silence which followed, Miss Vi doing belated chamberwork upstairs sounded like six on an ore-wagon as she walked up and down the uncarpeted hall.
“Wisht they’d sing somethin’,” said Porcupine Jim wistfully.