"No, thank you," Tom answered, "not any." Tom could not smoke, but he drew a plug of chewing tobacco from his pocket and took a chew, to show that his sympathies were that way.
"I guess perhaps some of you men met Mr. Motherwell in Winnipeg. He's in there hiring men for this locality," the bartender said amiably.
"That's the name of the gent that hired me," said one.
"Me too."
"And me," came from others. "I'd no intention of comin' here," a man from Paisley said. "I was goin' to Souris, until that gent got a holt of me, and I thought if he wuz a sample of the men ye raise here, I'd hike this way."
"He's lookin' for a treat," the bartender laughed. "He's sized you up, Tom, as a pretty good fellow."
"No, I ain't after no treat," the Paisley man declared. "That's straight, what I told you."
Tom unconsciously put his hand in his coat pocket and felt the money his father had put there. He drew it out wondering. The quick eyes of the bartender saw it at once.
"Tom's getting out his wad, boys," he laughed. "Nothin' mean about Tom, you bet Tom's goin' to do somethin'."
In the confusion that followed Tom heard himself saying: