He came slowly up the steps, and seemed embarrassed to find a stranger present. I was introduced and vouched for by my friend Posey, and he seemed much relieved.
Conversation had been rather dull during the last half hour, but now it had a merry note. The jaundiced Viking brightened up and wondered how many bird’s nests had been constructed with the whiskers that Wirrick had left up in the bayou. Time worn jokes were laughed at more than usual. Some new insurance that Posey had acquired was regarded as indicating a big fire as soon as business got dull, and Doc Dust was told that he ought to keep the small bag of oats under his buggy seat away from the medicine cases or he would lose his horse.
“Well, time is flitt’n,” remarked the “Serpent’s Hiss,” as he rose and departed for the barn lot behind the store.
One by one, like turtles slipping off a log into a stream, those who sat along the edge of the platform dropped silently to the ground and followed him, and most of the occupants of the chairs joined the procession. Like the oriflamme of Henry of Navarre, the gray overcoat led them on through the dusk.
The retreat to the rear was in deference to Posey’s scruples. He preferred that the store itself should be kept free from illegitimate traffic.
The odor of substantial sin, and a faint suggestion of a dragon’s breath was in the atmosphere when the crowd returned. Deliverance had come. Aridity was succeeded by bountiful moisture, that like gentle rain, had fallen upon thirsty flowers.
The Colonel seemed in some way to be dissatisfied with his visit to the barn, and was at odds with the owner of the gray overcoat when the expedition returned. He had parted with a silver coin under protest.
“Inate cou’tesy, suh, compelled me to pa’take of you’ah abundance, suh,” he declared. “It was not that I wanted you’ah infe’nal mixcha, you mink eyed old grave robbah,” he declared, as he left with his puppies.
The old bootlegger’s name was Richard Shakes, but the obvious natural perversion to “Dick Snakes” was too tempting to be resisted by the river humorists. He was also frequently alluded to as “Tiger Cat,” a term that seemed much more appropriate to the liquids he dispensed than to him, for, outside of his questionable occupation, the old man was entirely inoffensive and harmless. He was another member of the old time trapping fraternity, and lived alone in a log house on the creek about two miles away.
He had a large collection of Indian relics, that he had spent many years in accumulating, and he took great delight in showing them to anybody who came to see him. The arrow and spear heads were methodically arranged in long rows on thin smooth boards, and held in place by the heads of tacks that overlapped their edges. The boards were nailed to the walls of faced logs all over the interior of the cabin.