“Good-by, boys,” he murmured. “I know we must part. You’ll soon be scattered among my good friends, these thieves. I love money, but, oh, you little game of draw!”
To a sad and doleful tune some one in the adjoining room was singing:
“We from childhood played together, Heap fine comrade, Jack and I; We would fight each other’s battles, To each other’s aid we’d fly.”
“Oh, cut it out!” roared Buzzsaw. “Go file your voice.”
“That’s the tune the old cat died on,” cried South-paw.
“Something awful!” growled Warwhoop. “It would drive a man to murder.”
“These partitions are very thin,” said Gentle Willie. “I don’t think much of the old man bunking us in this place, when he might have put us up at the Antlers, the Alamo, or the Alta Vista.”
“Oh, what do you want, anyhow?” cried Warwhoop. “Do you want to be a howling swell? If he had put us up at any one of those places it would have cost him two or three times as much as it does here. Here the feed is good, the bed is fair, and I’m not kicking for some of the places we’ve bunked in. Let’s play poker.”
As the game got under way they were still further disturbed by a doleful, wailing chant which floated in from the adjoining room. Listening in spite of themselves, they heard something like this:
“No booka lo go dana, No booka lo go dana, No booka lo go dana-- Happy he away yah!”
“What the blazes is it,” snarled Buzzsaw; “Chinese, Hottentot, or----”
“Injun,” said South-paw. “If that ain’t an Injun dirge I’ll eat my hat.”
“Sure it is,” agreed Warwhoop. “They’ve put a couple of Injuns into that room, a crazy old brave and a tall young buck.”
“They seem to be celebrating,” laughed Gentle Willie. “I should say they had been indulging in fire water.”
“Don’t talk of it,” entreated Warwhoop. “You make me thirsty, and I have to be careful to let the booze alone while the baseball season is in swing.”
Clinker’s besetting weakness was his taste for liquor. Started on a toot by a single drink, he invariably went the limit, which meant a protracted spree from which he always recovered in a shaky condition.
The doleful singing continuing, they yelled threats at the singer and threw things against the partition. The result was a sudden burst of fierce and startling whoops and yells, followed by a return thumping on that same partition.
