He rose and stamped his feet to settle the shoes.
“Your horse is at the door; that rascal Oscar will take off the blanket for you. There’s a bottle of fair whisky in the cupboard, if you’d like a nip before starting. Bless me! I forgot the coffee! There on the table, Oscar, and never mind the chairs,” he added as Oscar came in with a tin pot and the cups on a piece of plank.
“I’m taking the rifle, Oscar; and be sure those revolvers are loaded with the real goods.”
There was a great color in Armitage’s face as he strode about preparing to leave. His eyes danced with excitement, and between the sentences that he jerked out half to himself he whistled a few bars from a comic opera that was making a record run on Broadway. His steps rang out vigorously from the bare pine floor.
“Watch the windows, Oscar; you may forgive a general anything but a surprise—isn’t that so, Claiborne?—and those fellows must be pretty mad by this time. Excuse the coffee service, Claiborne. We always pour the sugar from the paper bag—original package, you understand. And see if you can’t find Captain Claiborne a hat, Oscar—”
With a tin-cup of steaming coffee in his hand he sat on the table dangling his legs, his hat on the back of his head, the cartridge belt strapped about his waist over a brown corduroy hunting-coat. He was in a high mood, and chaffed Oscar as to the probability of their breakfasting another morning. “If we die, Oscar, it shall be in a good cause!”
“Excuse the coffee service, Claiborne.”
He threw aside his cup with a clatter, jumped down and caught the sword from the table, examined it critically, then sheathed it with a click.
Claiborne had watched Armitage with a growing impatience; he resented the idea of being thus ignored; then he put his hand roughly on Armitage’s shoulder.