bout it stranger, d'you play?"

"Only now an' then, by way of recreation. I don't want your money, I got
plenty of my own, an' I never let cards interfere with business. Down in
Texas we----"

"But, you ain't workin' today," interrupted the other.

"Well, not what you might call work, maybe. I aimed to get drunk, an' I
don't want to get switched off into a card game. Come on, now, an' we'll
have another drink, an' then Jo-Jo an' I'll renew our conversation. An'
while we're at it, Percy, if I was you I'd stand a little to one side
so's I wouldn't get my clothes mussed. Now, Jo-Jo, what was the gist of
that there remark of yours?"

"My name's Stork--Ike Stork, an'----"

"You're a bird all right."

"Yes, I'm a bird--an' Timber City's a bird, too. They can't no other
town in Montany touch us."

"Wolf River's got a bank----"

"Yes," interrupted the bartender, "an' we could of had a bank, too, but
we don't want none. If you want a town to go plumb to hell just you
start up a bank. Then everyone runs an' sticks their money in an' don't
spend none, an' business stops an' the town's gone plumb to hell!"

"I'd hev you to know," Stork cut in importantly, "that Timber City's a
cowtown, an' a sheep town, an' a minin' town, an' a timber town--both of
which Wolf River ain't neither, except cattle. We don't depend on no one
thing like them railroad towns, an' what's more, it tuck a act of
Congress fer to name Timber City----"

"Yes an' it takes an act of God to keep her goin', but He does it
offhand an' casual, same as He makes three-year-old steers out of
two-year-olds."

The bartender grinned affably, his thoughts on the roll of yellow bills
that reposed in the pocket of the Texan. "Don't regard Ike none
serious, pardner, he's settin' a little oneasy on account he got his
claim all surveyed off into buildin' lots, an' they ain't goin' like,
what you might say, hot cakes."

"Oh, I don't know," Stork interrupted, but the bartender ignored him.

"Now, about this here proclamation of yourn to git drunk," continued the
bartender. "Not that it ain't any man's privilege to git drunk whenever
he feels like, an' not that it's any of my business, 'cause it ain't,
an' not that I give a damn one way or the other, 'cause I don't, but
just by way of conversation, as you might say; what's the big idee? It
ain't neither the Thirteenth of June, nor the Fourth of July, nor
Thanksgivin' nor Christmas, nor New Year's, on which dates a ma