t was the idea of Pete, but Dick promised to do
his part. Pete agreed to let Dick have a whole keg of his best--or
rather worst--whiskey without charging him a cent. He was to take it
with us, with the sole purpose of getting me into the habit of drinking
again. Their ca'clation was that when we got away up in the Northwest,
where it was sometimes cold enough to freeze the tail off a brass
monkey, and Dick took his swigs reg'lar like, I'd be sure to knock
under and jine him. I couldn't stand it to see him enj'ying such bliss
and telling what a lot of good it done him.

"I never spicioned anything of the kind, but when I set eyes on that
keg stored among the things on our pack horses I fixed _my_ plan of
campaign. Being as it was meant to last four or five months-it wouldn't
do for Dick to draw on it too heavy at the start. Then, too, as I said,
he expected me to come in on the chorus, and he was saving up for that
glad day.

"Every time Dick took a drink, which I must say waren't often, of
course he invited me to jine, but when I said no, that was enough and
he let me alone. Oh, he was shrewd, and was playing his cards like a
boss of the game.

"Wal, we had only one brush with the Injins, and we got to the place we
had fixed on without any harm, and with most of the whiskey still in
the keg. It was where I had been doing my trapping for several years
before I went further South, which was the reason I happened to meet
you in that part of the world last summer.

"We set our traps as usual, turned our horses out to grass and stowed
our blankets and things in a big holler tree, in which I had cut a
door, with a buffalo skin that hung down in front. The first thing Dick
carried in was the whiskey keg. 'I think more of that,' he remarked, as
he sot it down tender like, as if it was a sick baby, 'than everything
else in the outfit.' I made no reply, but I was busy thinking, and when
he wa'nt looking I done some chuckling and laughing that would have
made him open his eyes had he knowed of it.

"One night when Dick was sleeping particular sound I sneaked out of the
holler tree with the keg. I had to be powerful careful, for we folks
larn to sleep light, but I managed it without waking him. Having made
up my mind long before what I would do, I didn't make any mistake.
Raising the cask, with the stuff jingling and sploshing about inside, I
brought it down on the p'int of a rock with a force that made it split
open like a w