we'd said "Howdy" all around they proceeded to spring a keg of whisky on
us.

Now, the whole Northwest groaned beneath a cast-iron prohibition law at
that time, and for some years thereafter. No booze of any description
was supposed to be sold in that portion of the Queen's domain. If you
got so thirsty you couldn't stand it any longer, you could petition the
governing power of the Territory for what was known as a "permit," which
same document granted you leave and license to have in your possession
one gallon of whisky. If you were a person of irreproachable character,
and your humble petition reached his excellency when he was amiably
disposed, you might, in the course of a few weeks, get the desired
permission--but, any way you figured it, whisky was hard to get, and
when you got it it came mighty high.

Naturally, that sort of thing didn't appeal to many of the
high-stomached children of fortune who ranged up and down the
Territory--being nearly all Americans, born with the notion that it is a
white man's incontestable right to drink whatever he pleases whenever it
pleases him. Consequently, every mother's son of them who knew how
rustled a "worm," took up his post in some well-hidden coulée close to
the line, and inaugurated a small-sized distillery. Others, with less
skill but just as much ambition, delivered it in four-horse loads to
the traders, who in turn "boot-legged" it to whosoever would buy. Some
of them got rich at it, too; which wasn't strange, when you consider
that everybody had a big thirst and plenty of money to gratify it. I've
seen barrels of moonshine whisky, so new and rank that two drinks of it
would make a jack-rabbit spit in a bull-dog's face, sold on the quiet
for six and seven dollars a quart--and a twenty-dollar gold piece was
small money for a gallon.