Neither the Cap'n nor Hiram found any consolation at that moment in the countenances of their respective wives. Those faces were very red, but their owners looked away resolutely and were plainly animated by a stern sense of duty, bulwarked as they were by the Workers.
"We've risen for the honor of this town," continued Miss Nile.
"Well, stay up, then!" snorted the short-tempered Hiram. "Though as for me, I never could see anything very handsome in a hen tryin' to fly."
"Do you hear that?" shrilled Miss Nile. "Aren't you proud of your noble husband, Mis' Look? Isn't he a credit to the home and an ornament to his native land?"
But Hiram, when indignant, was never abashed.
"Wimmen," said he, "has their duties to perform and their place to fill—all except old maids that make a specialty of 'tending to other folks' business." He bent a withering look on Miss Nile. "Cap'n Sproul and me ain't rummies, and you can't make it out so, not even if you stand here and talk till you spit feathers. We've had business dealin's with Parrott, and business is business."
"And every grafter 'twixt here and kingdom come has had the same excuse," declared the valiant head of the Workers. "Business or no business, Ferd Parrott is done runnin' this tavern."
"There's a point I reckon you and me can agree on," said Hiram, sadly. He gazed out to where the tracks of Mr. Parrott led away through the slush.
"And it's the sense of the women of this place that such a dirty old ranch sha'n't disgrace Smyrna any longer."
"You mean—"