Half a dozen willing hands were extended to grasp and restore it to its owner.
It was really extraordinary what an interest the onlookers had suddenly taken in the Chicago boy.
“Oh, come now,” objected Vance, trying to disengage himself from his well-meaning admirers, “I’m really much obliged to you; but I think you might let a fellow go now.”
“But you’ve got to drink with us before we can let you part company,” cried one officious six-foot native.
“You must excuse me,” said Vance, moving off, “but I don’t drink.”
“You don’t drink!” exclaimed several of the men in a breath, falling back at what seemed to them a most unheard-of statement. “Did you say that you didn’t drink?”
“That’s exactly what I did say, and I generally mean what I say,” answered the boy in a firm tone.
As Vance elbowed his way clear of the mob every one looked at him with the same curiosity they might have bestowed upon some new and extraordinary animal which had unexpectedly dropped in among them.
A fellow that did not drink was decidedly something out of the common in Missouri.
Vance, however, was rescued from this disagreeable situation by the man whose life he had saved.