"I believe that dead men are entitled to good treatment, and when you talk about hoping to see corpses go over a bank all I have to say is that it will be better for you if the late lamented ain't my friends."
"We'll open the box. I don't take back what I've said, and if my language don't suit your ways of thinking, I guess I can stand it."
With these words the teamster began to pry up the lid. He got a board off, and then pulled out some rags. A strip of something dark, like rosewood, presented itself.
"Eastern coffins, by thunder!" said several, and the crowd looked quite astonished.
Some more boards flew up, and the man who was ready to defend his friend's memory shifted his weapon a little. The cool manner of the teamster had so irritated him that he had made up his mind to pull his weapon at the first sight of the dead, even if the deceased was his worst and oldest enemy. Presently the whole of the box-cover was off, and the teamster, clearing away the packing, revealed to the astonished group the top of something which puzzled all alike.
"Boys," said he, "this is a pianner."
A general shout of laughter went up, and the man who had been so anxious to enforce respect for the dead muttered something about feeling dry, and the keeper of the nearest bar was several ounces better off by the time the boys had given the joke due attention.
Had a dozen dead men been in the box their presence in the camp could not have occasioned half the excitement that the arrival of that lonely piano caused. But the next morning it was known that the instrument was to grace a hurdy-gurdy saloon, owned by Tom Goskin, the leading gambler in the place. It took nearly a week to get this wonder on its legs, and the owner was the proudest individual in the State. It rose gradually from a recumbent to an upright position amid a confusion of tongues, after the manner of the Tower of Babel.
Of course, everybody knew just how such an instrument should be put up. One knew where the "off hind leg" should go, and another was posted on the "front piece."
Scores of men came to the place every day to assist.