Reynolds spent the next few days with Moreton, and, before he was fully aware of it, he had accepted an invitation to dine at Mr. Noble's house, where he would meet "two or three charming friends," as the banker had declared, "without the least formality in the world."
The weather had taken a delightful change, the wind shifting to the south and bringing from the Gulf of Mexico, over the vast extent of pine woods, a summer balminess and pungency. The sky, without a cloud, blue and dreamy bent above the gray-green hills with a Sabbath purity that made every aspect of the landscape surrounding the little city one of sweet guardianship and secure repose, quite at variance with certain social conditions which rendered a considerable portion of the city's populace at times turbulent and dangerous. Many miners and operatives in the vast iron works had fallen into the habit of coming together, at such hours as they were unemployed, in the gaudily tinseled liquor saloons and gambling dens with which certain streets were liberally supplied. Here they would meet the quiet-mannered but impetuous and bellicose mountaineers, with whom they quarreled and fought, sometimes with fatal results.
On an evening a day or two prior to the time set for the dinner at Mr. Noble's, Moreton had a little adventure. It chanced that some business with a foreman of one of his iron establishments had kept him until some time after dark in the office of the latter. In going back to his hotel he took a short route which led him through one of the worst streets in the city. Passing by the brilliantly lighted dens he could hear the clink of glasses and the boisterous voices of the drinkers and hangers-on. Once or twice he was forced to leave the side-walk in order to avoid groups of wrangling fellows who appeared on the point of going into a free-for-all fight. It was while making his way around one of these clumps of would-be rioters that a voice of peculiarly familiar accent reached his ear. It was a high tenor, drawling as follows:
"Hit air my bottom erpinion 'at I ken whirp out the last dad-burned one uf ye, an' 'en not dull the p'int uf this air ole frog-sticker nuther."
"Well, why don't ye do it? Talk's talk, but doin' it is another thing intirely," retorted a heavier voice with just a trace of Irish in it.
"Hit ain't fur me to go to cuttin' uf ye, ef ye keeps off'n me; but I'll jest be b'iled up an' chawed over ef I don't let yer back bone out in front uf ye, ef ye starts onto me. An' now ye've hearn me," was the tenor's quick response.
Moreton stopped short and glanced sharply into the midst of the group. There was White with a long knife in one hand and a heavy stone in the other, his wizened face and sunken eyes full of defiance and his gaunt frame rigid but ready for desperate action.
"Kem on, ye sneakin' keerd-shufflers, an' I'll jest cut ye inter striffins," he continued; "this here knife hit air a eetchin' fur yer livers an' lights, hit air!"
Just then a pistol gleamed in the hand of the man nearest Moreton, and the clear, keen click of the lock was sharply audible. It was a slender, but very dangerous sound.
"Make shore fire with yer shootin-iron," White added quickly, his voice rising into a thin falsetto, "fur ef ye don't hit air good-by ter you, hit air!" As he spoke he prepared to rush forward.