"He doesn't say," muttered Barrett. "He hasn't asked for anything. He's thinking it over."
"It's the cat and the mouse, and him the cat!" suggested the Honorable Pulaski, with manifest intent to irritate. "I should have most thought you would have thrown your arms around his neck after your rescue and yelled in his ear: 'My daughter is yours, noble man! Take her and my money, and live happy ever after!' These fellows that write novels always have 'em do that sort of thing--and the novel-writers ought to know!"
"There's no novel about this thing!" retorted Barrett, angrily. "My girl knows whom she is expected to marry--and she'll marry him when the right time comes. And it won't be a college dude without one dollar to rub against another! I'm in a devil of a hole, Pulaski, but do you think for one minute that I'm going to let that Wade make a slip-noose of this thing and hang me up with my heels kicking air? I'll either choke him with thousand-dollar bills, or--or--"
He glanced at Britt and forbore to finish the sentence.
The door opened just then and Tommy Eye, teamster, poked in his grizzled head.
"Cook has lost his voice hollerin' 'Beans!' gents," he reported, and Britt whirled on his heel and led the way out.
"After supper, after supper, John!" he snapped, testily, when the other repeated his plea for advice. "We'll come back here and find a plan blossoming in our cigar smoke." They hurried away to the cook-camp, bending against the rush of the wind. "Put some wood on that fire, Tommy," Britt called over his shoulder.
With the scent of the inebriate, Tommy had sniffed whiskey when he opened the camp door; his drunkard's eye caressed the bottle that the Honorable Pulaski had forgotten to replace in the cupboard. He stood dusting from his sleeves the bark litter of the wood he had brought and softly snuffled the moisture at the corners of his mouth as he gazed. One wild impulse suggested that he take the bottle and run into the woods.
"No," said Tommy, aloud, in order that his voice might brace his determination. "It would be stealin', and, bless God, Tommy Eye never stole when he was sober. I may have stole when I was drunk and didn't know it, but I never stole when I was sober." He paused. "I wish I wasn't sober," he sighed. He took up the bottle, turned it in his grimy hands, gustfully studied the streakings of its oil on the glass, and at last sniffed at the open mouth. "Ah-h-h-h, rich men have the best, and they have plenty. Some people don't think it is wrong to steal from rich men. I do. But if he was here he'd probably say: 'Tommy, you have brought the wood--you have mended the fire. It is a cold night, and sure the wind is awful! Tommy, take one drink with me and work the harder for P'laski Britt on the morrer.'"