Had Bonnie Belle been there he would have refused. But to do the best he could he took a half-empty bottle, hastily poured water into it, and set it before the man, hoping to have him get but half the quantity. The miner suspected, held it up to the lamp, and looked at it.
“Is this pale sherry, Shuffles?”
“It’s whisky.”
“You lies, for you have drowned it with water, so you kin hev it.”
Quick as a flash he dashed the stuff full into the face of poor Shuffles, who, blinded and maddened, drew his revolver and fired a shot at random. It was the last act of his life, for he dropped dead with a bullet in his brain, while Pistols called out:
“He put water into my whisky, pards, and then shot at me, so I kilt him. Thar he lies ahind the bar.”
To put water in whisky was a criminal offense which the miners of Yellow Dust Valley could not forgive or forget, and so Shuffles lost the sympathy of the crowd by his heinous act, while Pistols rose in their estimation for visiting just punishment upon one who would do such a thing.
“Now, Pard Studley, I wants some whisky,” and Pistols turned to the bartender nearest, who quickly placed a fresh bottle before him, while the miner took the other which had caused the trouble, and, dashing it against the wall at the rear of the bar, shivered it to atoms.
“Yer sha’n’t p’izen no one else with watered whisky,” he said.
Then, turning to those who had gathered about him, he said: