During the storekeeper's temporary cessation of vigilance while waiting upon his customer, the others had seized the opportunity to refresh themselves at his expense.
A thick, heavy tumbler, so cloudy and begrimed as to be almost opaque, was filled from a large jug placed conveniently upon a sack of potatoes, and passed from one to the other, each absorbing little or much as the thirst was upon him, and passing it on to his neighbor.
Daddy Dunnigan offered it to Bill along with the advice; but the latter ungraciously refused and, turning abruptly away, shouldered his pack and proceeded to select his "hotel."
"Wonder who's he?" remarked Hod Burrage as he lazily resumed his seat.
"Too damned upity to suit me!" vociferated Creed, Hilarity's self-alleged bad man, with a fierce exhalation that dislodged a thin volley of cracker-crumbs from his overhanging mustache. "A heap too damned upity for this camp, says I."
He shook a hairy fist menacingly toward the door through which the man had departed. "It's lucky for him it was old Daddy there 'stead of me he wouldn't drink with or I'd of went to the floor with him an' teached him his manners."
"Naw ye wouldn't, Creed," said the old man. "Ye'd done jest loike ye done—set there atop yer barr'l an' blinked. An' when he'd went out ye'd blowed an' bragged an' blustered, an' then fizzled out like a wet fuse. 'Stead of which Oi predic' that the young feller's a real man—once he gets strung out. Anyways, Oi bet he does his foightin' whiles the other feller's there 'stead of settin' 'round an' snortin' folks' whisky full o' cracker-crumbs."
He gazed ruefully into his half-filled glass.
"Throw it out, Daddy, an' have one on me," offered Burrage, reaching for the jug.
With a sly wink toward the others, the old man drained the glass at a gulp and passed it innocently to be refilled.