SHEEP-HUNTING 155 



outside the town. The day after our arrival a 

 carpenter who had just completed a building 

 contract somewhere, and who was overflowing 

 with money and good-nature, came back to the 

 town and proceeded to " treat," with the result 

 that in a few hours the city was mad drunk, and 



remained so for a considerable time. P and 



I dined that night at the barracks, and by the 

 time we returned to the town the orgy was at 

 its height. The men were simply wild, raving 

 drunk, drunk with the vilest of whisky, and 

 nobody knows how vile and how horrible in its 

 consequences whisky can be until he has tasted 

 a sample of the kind of stuff that is, or used to be, 

 concocted at many of those little out-of-the-way 

 frontier towns. They were yeUing, laughing, roar- 

 ing, fighting, exploding rifles and firing off revolvers 

 promiscuously all over the place. They intended 

 it as a feu de joie no doubt, but as they loaded 

 with ball cartridge, and were too magnanimous 

 to take the petty precaution of firing in the air, 



it did not strike P and me exactly in that 



light. In fact it appeared anything but a joyful 

 proceeding to us, and considering that discretion, 

 in such a case, was undoubtedly the better part of 

 valour, we made a wide circle out of the line of 



