dissatisfaction. At this juncture, Whisky Dick, considerably
affected by his favorite stimulant, approached the stranger's
table, and, drawing up a chair, sat uninvited before him.

"Mebbee, young man," he began gravely, "ye don't like Mammy
Downey's pies?"

The stranger replied curtly, and in some astonishment, that he did
not, as a rule, "eat pie."

"Young man," continued Dick, with drunken gravity, "mebbee you're
accustomed to Charlotte rusks and blue mange; mebbee ye can't eat
unless your grub is got up by one o' them French cooks'? Yet WE--
us boys yar in this camp--calls that pie--a good--a com-pe-tent
pie!"

The stranger again disclaimed anything but a general dislike of
that form of pastry.

"Young man," continued Dick, utterly unheeding the explanation,--
"young man, mebbee you onst had an ole--a very ole mother, who,
tottering down the vale o' years, made pies. Mebbee, and it's like
your blank epicurean soul, ye turned up your nose on the ole woman,
and went back on the pies, and on her! She that dandled ye when ye
woz a baby,--a little baby! Mebbee ye went back on her, and shook
her, and played off on her, and gave her away--dead away! And now,
mebbee, young man--I wouldn't hurt ye for the world, but mebbee,
afore ye leave this yar table, YE'LL EAT THAT PIE!"

The stranger rose to his feet, but the muzzle of a dragoon revolver