California had, before this time, a monopoly of such rough and possibly dishonest jests. The very men who would have scorned implicating themselves in any business swindle, saw no harm, in occasionally, when under the influence of liquor, perpetrating a joke of this description. When younger, Taylor himself may have been an accomplice in some of the same sort. He walked back to the bar, with a countenance as grave as that of a man who is going to the gallows.
Speedily another round of drinks was ordered. This was followed by another and another.
Occasionally I glanced at him, and saw the hard lines of his countenance growing longer and longer. At last, about one o'clock, when we had been playing for some three hours and the log on the hearth had burnt down to scarcely more than a white mass of wood, which would have blistered any hand that touched it even while it threw out no heat, we felt the place growing cold. Old "Zac's" face lost its melancholy at the moment when Ben Painter sang out, with a lusty shiver:
"Put another log on the fire, Zac!"
"Whar am I to git one?"
"What d'yer mean?"
"You bet, Mr. Painter! I hain't got the key. How in thunder am I to go fur wood?"
The old fellow was quite right. How in thunder could he go to the wood-pile, while the door was locked? It was dangerous to let him have the key. He might run to Tom Long's, and inform him of our use of the contents of his cellar, without cashing up. Tom Long was by no means such a pacifically disposed individual as his temporary substitute. A similar thought to this evidently suggested itself to the mind of Brighton Bill. Rising from his seat, he said:
"Hi'll go with 'im, and may H'i be blamed hif the hold rip bolts."