The log-jam down the river was being discussed in rich and glowing numbers. The talk was colored with fragmentary experiences of former days on the drive. Statistics were handled carelessly, to say the least, and disputed in pointed language, which, if not always logical, seemed convincing, especially to the speakers. The men rasped each other with barbed and prickly oaths that passed with them as slang. Every one was happy in a boisterous fashion, when Slocum, hitherto unnoticed, exclaimed,—
“They ain’t a bug-chasin’ son-of-a-duck what can find the tender spot in a jam quicker ’n ole Hoss Avery. He ain’t a lady’s man”—with a leer at Smeaton—“and he ain’t scared of nothin’ what walks, creeps, or flies.”
He raised an outstretched arm grandiloquently, to command the attention he thought due, and continued with drunken solemnity,—
“’Cept me.”
“Are you walkin’, creepin’, or flyin’ now, Andy?”
Slocum swayed a little and scowled. Then he drew himself up with questionable dignity.
“’Cept me,” he repeated.
The men laughed. “It’s a good thing Hoss ain’t here,” said the blacksmith, “’cause he’d be so scared he couldn’t eat nothin’.”
Slocum, vaguely realizing that he was being made sport of, with the illogical turn of a drunken mind, cursed the absent Hoss Avery rabidly.
“Thet’ll do, Andy,” said Joe Smeaton kindly. “You jest keep a few of them fancy trimmin’s against the next time you meet Hoss. Mebby he’ll like to hear ’em and mebby he won’t.”