“I—guess you’re from Yankee-land, stranger; shake, won’t ye?” he said, thrusting his hand across the counter. “Gorry! but it’s prime ter see a good old New Englander among all these dagos and Dutchmen and the Lord only knows what else here. Bill an’ me was gittin’ lonesome—I’m glad ye come!”
At Jim’s first words the stranger had stepped back, but the outstretched hand had brought him to the counter again, and he gave the brown fingers a grip that made the little hunchback wince with pain. But Pedler Jim’s welcome was scarcely spoken before the man had turned and disappeared through the door.
“Well, I snum! I should think he was ‘Hustler Joe’!” murmured Jim. “If he didn’t even hustle off and leave his change,” he added, looking helplessly at the dollar bill on the counter.
Somers laughed.
“Hustle!—you’d oughter see him at the mines! why, that man works like all possessed. He don’t speak nor look at a soul of us ’nless he has to. If there’s a chance ter work extry—he gits it; an’ he acts abused ’cause he can’t work every night and Sundays to boot. Gosh! I can’t understand him,” finished Bill, with a yawn and a long stretch.
“That ain’t ter be wondered at—’tain’t ‘Hustler Bill’ that the boys call you,” replied Jim, a sly twinkle in his beady little eyes.
Somers sprang to his feet and towered over the hunchback, his fist raised in pretended wrath.
“Why don’t ye take a feller yer own size?” he demanded.
The hunchback chuckled, dove under the upraised arm, and skipped around the room like a boy. An encounter like this was meat and drink to him, and the miners good-naturedly saw to it that he did not go hungry.
Somers shook his fist at the curious little creature perched on the farthermost cracker-barrel and slouched out the door.