his pulpit guidance, that what looks like
deceit, that a-way, is often simple del'cacy, while Christian charity
freequent w'ars the face of fraud.'

"But I'm gettin' ahead of the wagons. Mike, who's a heap heated, goes
lookin' for the Bug in the Tub of Blood S'loon. The Bug don't happen
to be vis'ble no whar in the scen'ry when Mike comes clatterin' in. By
way of a enterin' wedge Mike subscribes for a drink. As the Tub
barkeep goes settin' out the glasses Mike, with his custom'ry gifts
for gettin' himse'f in wrong, starts fomentin' trouble. An' at that
it's simply his ignorance, an' a conceited deesire to show off among
them Red Dogs.

"As the Tub barkeep slams down the crockery Mike barks up sort o'
sharp an' peevish:

"'The ice! Ain't you people got no ice?'

"The Tub barkeep takes a sour squinch-owl look at Mike. Then he goes
softly swabbin' off the counter.

"After a while he looks up an' says:

"'Which you don't notice no swirlin' drifts of snow outside, do you?
You ain't been swallowed up in no blizzard, be you, comin' into town?
No, my stilted, stiff-laigged sheep of the mountain, we ain't got no
ice.'

"Mike, feelin' some buffaloed by the barkeep's manner, don't say no
more. In silence he drinks his licker, an' then sets down at a table.

"The barkeep, with the tail of his eye, continyoos to look him over.

"'Whatever do you make of that crazy maverick,' he asks of a
freighter, who's jest rolled in from Lordsburg. 'The idee of him
askin' for ice in August!'

"'Mebby he's the ha'r-brained party they sends word about from
Wolfville,' the freighter replies--'him who's out to crawl the Bug's
hump a whole lot?'

"'That's the identical persimmon!' exclaims the barkeep, slammin' his
hand on the counter. 'Which I ought to have knowed it without bein'
told. I wonder if Peets, or some of them other Wolfville sports, puts
him up to come bully-raggin' round yere about ice to insult us?'

"The freighter allows he'll edge into a pow-wow with Mike, an' feel
him out.

"Planted at the same table, the freighter an' Mike is soon as thick as
thieves. They're gettin' along like two pups in a basket, when in
comes a disturbin' element in the shape of one of them half-hoss
half-alligator felons, whose distinguishin' characteristic is that
they're allers grouchy an' hostile. That's the drawback to Red Dog. It
certainly is the home camp of some of the most ornery reptiles, that
a-way!

"The grouchy sorehead party, f