ill, in a voice
suspiciously mild. "What would you suggest?"

"A walk, mebbe!" said Hi, in delighted expectation.

"I hold the opinion that you have mentioned an uncommonly vallable
remedy, better'n Pain Killer almost."

Bill rose languidly.

"I say," he drawled, tapping the young fellow, "it appears to me a
little walk would perhaps be good, mebbe."

"All right, wait till I get my cap," was the unsuspecting reply.

"I don't think perhaps you won't need it, mebbe. I cherish the opinion
you'll, perhaps, be warm enough." Bill's voice had unconsciously passed
into a sterner tone. Hi was on his feet and at the door.

"This here interview is private AND confidential," said Bill to his
partner.

"Exactly," said Hi, opening the door. At this the young fellow, who was
a strapping six-footer, but soft and flabby, drew back and refused to
go. He was too late. Bill's grip was on his collar and out they went
into the snow, and behind them Hi closed the door. In vain the young
fellow struggled to wrench himself free from the hands that had him by
the shoulder and the back of the neck. I took it all in from the window.
He might have been a boy for all the effect his plungings had upon the
long, sinewy arms that gripped him so fiercely. After a minute's furious
struggle the young fellow stood quiet, when Bill suddenly shifted his
grip from the shoulder to the seat of his buckskin trousers. Then began
a series of evolutions before the house--up and down, forward and back,
which the unfortunate victim, with hands wildly clutching at empty
air, was quite powerless to resist till he was brought up panting and
gasping, subdued, to a standstill.

"I'll larn you agnostics and several other kinds of ticks," said Bill,
in a terrible voice, his drawl lengthening perceptibly. "Come round
here, will you, and shove your blanked second-handed trash down our
throats?" Bill paused to get words; then, bursting out in rising wrath:

"There ain't no sootable words for sich conduct. By the livin' Jeminy--"
He suddenly swung his prisoner off his feet, lifted him bodily, and held
him over his head at arm's length. "I've a notion to--"

"Don't! don't! for Heaven's sake!" cried the struggling wretch, "I'll
stop it! I will!"

Bill at once lowered him and set him on his feet.

"All right! Shake!" he said, holding out his hand, which the other took
with caution.

It was a remarkably sudden conversion and lasting in its effects. There
was no mo