“Zip! Zip! Hurry up, you spavined old cayuse! Kick up your heels and come to life,” suggested Dead Shot Mike, threateningly, while he hastily swallowed what was left in the bottom of his glass and wiped his lips on his sleeve, ready for another drink.
“Ee—you! Zip! Zip! I’m my mother’s baby and I want my milk, I do,” whimpered Shoshone Pete, while Snakes, the bartender, was struggling with a refractory cork. He sneered:
“Ah! gimme a minute till I get this cork out. You’re like a pack o’ howlin’ coyotes hungry for meat.”
The cork popped out of the bottle just then and Snakes handed it to the waiting men, who set up another song with its shrill chorus of “zips and ee—yous.” By the time the song was ended another glass was called for, and Shoshone Pete began his noisy harangue of:
“Ee—you! Zip! Zip! I’m the warbler of the range. I’m the wild mocking-bird of the chaparral. I’m the silver-voiced son of a gun from Cheyenne, Wy-o. I’m the game cock of Deadwood, and it’s my time to crow!” then imitating a rooster. All the others laughed, and Snakes said, benignly:
“This is one on me, boys. Come up to the trough.” Again handing out the bottle.
“Watch him, boys, watch him! Whenever he treats, it’s ‘coffin varnish,’” said Shoshone Pete, while the others attended strictly to business.
“Is that so?” said Snakes, angrily. “Let me tell you, this stuff is four years old and came from Denver.”
“Well,” said Mike, “it is the strongest four-year-old I ever saw. Here’s how.”
“Four-year-old! Don’t believe him, boys,” said Dan. “I seen him out in the gulch last night makin’ this. Half a bar’l of rain water, two gallons of alcohol, a plug o’ tobacco and a section o’ barbed wire.”