They grouped themselves about him and drank, leaving me isolated. But this, now my blood was up, only added to the exasperation I felt at his contemptuous treatment, and accordingly I walked to the bar, and as the only unoccupied place was by Johnson’s side I went there and said, speaking as coolly as I could:
“Though no one asks me to drink I guess I’ll take some whisky, bar-keeper, if you please.”
Johnson was standing with his back to me, but when I spoke he looked round, and I saw, or thought I saw, a sort of curiosity in his gaze. I met his eye defiantly. He turned to the others and said, in his ordinary, slow way:
“Wall, good night, boys; I’ve got to go. It’s gittin’ late, an’ I’ve had about as much as I want.”
Whether he alluded to the drink or to my impertinence I was unable to divine. Without adding a word he left the room amid a chorus of “Good night, Sheriff!” With him went Martin and half-a-dozen more.
I thought I had come out of the matter fairly well until I spoke to some of the men standing near. They answered me, it is true, but in monosyllables, and evidently with unwillingness. In silence I finished my whisky, feeling that every one was against me for some inexplicable cause. I resented this and stayed on. In a quarter of an hour the rest of the crowd had departed, with the exception of Morris and a few of the same kidney.
When I noticed that these gamblers, outlaws by public opinion, held away from me, I became indignant. Addressing myself to Morris, I asked:
“Can you tell me, sir, for you seem to be an educated man, what I have said or done to make you all shun me?”
“I guess so,” he answered indifferently. “You took a hand in a game where you weren’t wanted. And you tried to come in without ever having paid the ante, which is not allowed in any game—at least not in any game played about here.”
The allusion seemed plain; I was not only a stranger, but a foreigner; that must be my offence. With a “Good night, sir; good night, barkeeper!” I left the room.