"Have it as you like," said Fletcher, unruffled. "I shall not drink to please any man. I had a younger brother—a bright, promising young man poor Ben was—who drank himself to death. He'd have been alive now but for whiskey."
"Oh, dry up your pious talk! You make me sick!" exclaimed Missouri Jack in deep disgust.
Next he accosted John Miles, who curtly declined and received in return a volley of abuse. Now Miles was a powerful man, and not possessed of Fletcher's self-control. He paused, and surveyed Jack with a menacing look.
"Look here, stranger," he said, sharply, "just have a care how you use that tongue of yours. This is a free country, and if I choose to decline your whiskey, there's no law against it that I know of."
"You're a white-livered sneak!"
Missouri Jack did not proceed with his remarks, for John Miles, seizing him by the shoulder, tripped him up, and strode away, leaving him prostrate, and pouring out a volley of curses. Being a bully, and cowardly as most bullies are, he did not pursue his broad-shouldered enemy, but vowed vengeance whenever a good opportunity came.
In fact, the only one of the original miners who accepted Jack's invitation was Lawrence Peabody.
"Step in, stranger, and have a drink!" said Jack, a little dubiously, having met with such poor luck heretofore.
The young Bostonian paused. He was not a drinker at home, but in his discontent and disappointment he was tempted.
"My dear sir, you are very polite," he said.