“Well, shut the door, Champers. The stage doesn’t come inside. It stops at Hans Wyker’s saloon first, anyhow,” one of the men behind a counter declared.
“If you’d open a bar here you’d do some business and run that Wyker fellow out. Steward, you and Jacobs are too danged satisfied with yourselves. We need some business spirit in this town if we want to get the county seat here,” Champers declared.
“That may help your real estate, but it’s not my kind of business, and no bar is going into this tavern,” Jacobs replied, leaning his elbow against the back of Stewart, who was bending over the desk.
Stewart and Jacobs were young men, the former a finely built, fair-haired Scotchman from whom good nature, good health, and good morals fairly radiated; not the kind of man to become a leader, but rather to belong to the substantial following of a leader.
Jacobs was short, and slender, and dark—unmistakably of Jewish blood—with a keen black eye, quick motions, and the general air of a shrewd business man, letting no dollar escape him. He had also the air of a gentleman. Nobody in Carey’s Crossing had ever heard him swear—the language of the frontier always—nor seen him drink, 60 nor had taken a parcel from his store that had been tied up with soiled fingers.
The Jacobs House register might be splashed with ink, but the ledger records of the business concern were a joy to the eye.
At Stewart’s words Champers shut the door with a slam and blustered toward the stove, crowding smaller men out of their places before it.
“I am glad I don’t have to run other men’s affairs—”he began, when the rear door flew open and a slender young Negro hurried in with the announcement:
“De stage done sighted approachin’ from de east, gen’lemen. Hit’s done comin’ into town right now.”
“All right, Bo Peep; take care of the team,” Stewart responded, and a general re-swarming of the crowd followed.