220 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS. 



The moment the man was beyond ear-shot, I turned to 

 Yankee, and said sharply, "Look you, my good fellow, if 

 you don't beware how you use that whiskey, you may chance 

 to wake up with your throat cut before you are done with it." 



The fellow only laughed out coarsely, and asserted, with 

 a sly wink toward my friend 



" That he wan't afraid of whiskey's cutting his throat, and 

 wondered if I was afraid ?" 



I turned from him in disgust, remarking, " I see you've 

 got to learn a great deal about the West yet." 



In a moment after our host entered the door, and to our 

 no little astonishment, accompanied by a train of powerful, 

 ruffianly -looking fellows, which numbered, along with him- 

 self, six in all, and made a by no means grateful addition to 

 our company. 



A suspicion, which, as I have observed, continued to gain 

 ground upon me, that we had fallen upon evil times here, 

 and certainly into evil company ; for I never remembered 

 chancing upon a more villainous group than this which now 

 gathered about us. 



I was fully roused to the feeling of doubt and insecurity, 

 as I carefully watched the movements of these fellows. I 

 perceived in a moment that they were armed with knives as 

 well as whiskey bottles. A look immediately passed between 

 my friend and myself, and my course was determined upon 

 for we were both, so far as I knew, unarmed, and I saw 

 while they gathered more closely around us, with rough but 

 over friendly greetings, that each man of them carried his 

 knife with but a clumsy pretext of concealment underneath 

 his shirt. I now felt at once what was the course proper to 

 be pursued. That as we were in their power but too evi- 

 dently, our only available course for the present, was in 

 temporizing, and I saw too that it would be utterly useless 

 for us to make any calculations upon the Yankee, who re- 

 ceived them with a boisterous greeting. They immediately 

 offered him the whiskey-bottle. He snatched it eagerly. 



