This Jo. Dunfer--or, as he was familiarly known in the neighborhood,
Whisky Jo.--was a very important personage in those parts. He was
apparently about forty years of age, a long, shock-headed fellow,
with a corded face, a gnarled arm and a knotty hand like a bunch of
prison-keys. He was a hairy man, with a stoop in his walk, like that
of one who is about to spring upon something and rend it.

Next to the peculiarity to which he owed his local appellation, Mr.
Dunfer's most obvious characteristic was a deep-seated antipathy to
the Chinese. I saw him once in a towering rage because one of his
herdsmen had permitted a travel-heated Asian to slake his thirst at
the horse-trough in front of the saloon end of Jo.'s establishment.
I ventured faintly to remonstrate with Jo. for his unchristian
spirit, but he merely explained that there was nothing about Chinamen
in the New Testament, and strode away to wreak his displeasure upon
his dog, which also, I suppose, the inspired scribes had overlooked.

Some days afterward, finding him sitting alone in his barroom, I
cautiously approached the subject, when, greatly to my relief, the
habitual austerity of his expression visibly softened into something
that I took for condescension.

"You young Easterners," he said, "are a mile-and-a-half too good for
this country, and you don't catch on to our play. People who don't
know a Chileno from a Kanaka can afford to hang out liberal ideas
about Chinese immigration, but a fellow that has to fight for his
bone with a lot of mongrel coolies hasn't any time for foolishness."

This long consumer, who had probably never done an honest day's-work
in his life, sprung the lid of a Chinese tobacco-box and with thumb