Lambert and Taterleg had a few drinks to show their respect for the institutions of the country, and went back to the hotel. Somebody had taken Taterleg's place beside Alta on the green bench. It was a man who spoke with rumbling voice like the sound of an empty wagon on a rocky road. Lambert recognized the intonation at once.
"It looks to me like there's trouble ahead for you, Mr. Wilson," he said.
"I'll take that feller by the handle on his face and bust him ag'in' a tree like a gourd," Taterleg said, not in boasting manner, but in the even and untroubled way of a man stating a fact.
"If there was any tree."
"I'll slam him ag'in' a rock; I'll bust him like a oyster."
"I think we'd better go to bed without a fight, if we can."
"I'm willin'; but I'm not goin' around by the back door to miss that feller."
They came up the porch into the light that fell weakly from the office down the steps. There was a movement of feet beside the green bench, an exclamation, a swift advance on the part of the big-nosed man who had afforded amusement for Taterleg in the barber's chair.
"You little bench-leggid fiste, if you've got gall enough to say one word to a man's face, say it!" he challenged.
Alta came after him, quickly, with pacific intent. She was a tall girl, not very well filled out, like an immature bean pod. Her heavy black hair was cut in a waterfall of bangs which came down to her eyebrows, the rest of it done up behind in loops like sausages, and fastened with a large, red ribbon. She had put off her apron, and stood forth in white, her sleeves much shorter than the arms which reached out of them, rings on her fingers which looked as if they would leave their shadows behind.