The largest and most popular saloon was next door to the postoffice, the care of which Dan had secured for his stepfather, as the duties of it were just about as arduous as any that gentleman would deign to accept. The mail came every two weeks, and its magnitude was of the fourth-class order. No one else wanted it, for a man would have to possess some other means of livelihood before he could undertake it, but the captain accepted it with the attitude of a veteran who was a martyr to his country. As to the other means of livelihood, that did not cause him much troubled thought, since he had chanced to fall in Dan’s way just as Dan was starting up to the Kootenai country, and Dan had been the “other means” ever since.
The captain watched Overton gulp down the “fire-water,” while he himself sipped his with the appreciation of a gentleman of leisure.
“You didn’t use to drink so early in the day,” the captain remarked, with a certain watchful malice in his face. “Are your cares as a guardian wearing on your nerves, and bringing a need of stimulants?”
Overton wheeled about as though to fling the whisky-glass across at the speaker; but the gallant captain, perceiving that he had overreached his stepson’s patience, promptly dodged around the end of the bar, squatting close to the floor. Overton, leaning over to look at him, only laughed contemptuously, and set the glass down again.
“You’re not worth the price of the glass,” he decided, amused in spite of himself at the fear in the pale-blue eyes. Even the flowing side-whiskers betrayed a sort of alarm in their bristling alertness. “And if it wasn’t 88 that one good woman fancied you were true metal instead of slag, I’d—”
He did not complete the sentence, leaving the captain in doubt as to his half-expressed threat.
“Get up there!” Dan suddenly exclaimed. “Now, you think you will annoy me about that guardianship until I’ll give it up, don’t you?” he said, more quietly, as the captain once more stood erect, but in a wavering, uncertain way. “Well, you’re mightily mistaken, and you might as well end your childish interference right here. The girl is as much entitled to my consideration as you are—more! So if any one is dropped out of the family circle, it will not be her. Do you understand? And if I hear another word of your insinuations about her amusements, I’ll break your neck! Two, Jim.”
This last was to the barkeeper, and had reference to a half-dollar he tossed on the counter as payment for his own drink and that of the captain; and again he stalked into the street with his temper even more rumpled than when he left Mrs. Huzzard’s.
Assuredly it was not a good morning for Mr. Overton’s peace of mind.
Down along the river he came in sight of the cause of his discontent, the most innocent-looking cause in the world. She was teaching Lyster to paddle the canoe with but one paddle, as the Indians do, and was laughing derisively at his ineffectual attempts to navigate in a straight line.