Along one end of the place went the bar, backed by its shelves of bottles and thick glassware, and in each side wall gaped a door—one for each state. Besides a few hickory-withed chairs there were several even ruder tables and benches, riven with axe and adze out of wide logs, and supported by such legs as those of a butcher's block. But these furnishings were all near the walls—and the whole center area of the floor, with its white-painted boundary line, was as unencumbered as a deck cleared for action.
The momentary surprise which greeted the newcomers was for the most part fictitious—and carefully rehearsed, but of this Jerry Henderson had no knowledge.
He walked to the bar, followed by one or two of his guardians, and extended a general invitation. "Gentlemen, it's my treat. What will you-all have?"
After the glasses had been filled and drained, Henderson went over and stood for a while in the grateful warmth of the booming hearth. He was looking on at this picture with its savor of medievalism—the ensemble that called to mind a Hogarth prim, but soon he nodded to his guide who slouched not far from his elbow.
"I reckon we'd better fare on, Mr. Blackwell," he suggested evenly. "We've still got a journey ahead of us."
Blackwell seemed less impressed with the immediate urgency.
"Thar hain't no tormentin' haste," he demurred. "We're all right stiff-j'inted from ridin'. We mout as well limber up a leetle mite afore we starts out ergin."
Jerry's eyes clouded. He would have preferred finding a spirit of readier obedience in his body-guard, but it was best to accept the situation with philosophy. Accordingly he turned again to the bar, though this time he made only a pretense of drinking. Fresh arrivals had begun drifting in and the place now held more than a score. Among them were already several whose voices were thickening or growing shrill, according to their individual fashions of becoming drunk.
Jerry sought to reassure himself against the disquieting birth of suspicion, yet when he heard one of the newcomers address Blackwell as Sam instead of John, an ugly apprehension settled upon him and this foreboding was not allayed as he caught the response in a low and savage growl: "Shet up, ye fool!"
The temper of the motley outfit was rapidly growing boisterous, though he himself seemed ignored until, in turning, he accidently jostled a man whom he had never seen before to-night, and that individual wheeled on him with an abusive truculence. Henderson's gorge rose, but his realization was now fully awake to the requirement of self-control, so with a good-natured retort he moved away.