called for a bottle o' rum. Talk about grinnin' the bark off a tree--that
ain't nothin'. One look o' mine would raise a blister on a bull's heel.
Cock a doodle doo! (slapping his thighs). Gol darn it! Ain't there some
one that dast come up an' collar me? It would just please my vitals if
there was some man here who could split me into shoe pegs. I deserve it
if ever a man did. I'll have to go home an' have another settlement with
ol' Bill Sims. He's purty well gouged up, an' ain't but one ear, but he's
willin' to do his best. That's somethin'. It kind o' stays yer appetite,
an' I suppose that's all a man like me can expect in this world o'
sorrow."

At this point a tall, raw-boned woman in "a brindle dress" (to quote the
phrase of Samson), wearing a large gilt pin just below her collar, with
an orthographic design which spelled the name Minnie, approached the hero
and boldly boxed his ears.

"Licked at last," he shouted as he picked up his hat, dislodged by the
violence he had suffered, and retired from the scene with a good-natured
laugh.

Sarah was a bit dismayed by the behavior of these rough forerunners of
civilization.

"Don't worry," said Samson, as they were driving away on the Lake Road
next morning. "The lake and river boatmen are the roughest fellers in the
West, and they're not half as bad as they look an' talk. Their deviltry
is all on the outside. They tell me that there isn't one o' those boys
who wouldn't give his life to help a woman, an' I guess it's so."

They had the lake view and its cool breeze on their way to Silver Creek,