contemptuous treatment, and accordingly I walked to the bar, and as the
only unoccupied place was by Johnson's side I went there and said,
speaking as coolly as I could:

"Though no one asks me to drink I guess I'll take some whisky, bar-
keeper, if you please." Johnson was standing with his back to me, but
when I spoke he looked round, and I saw, or thought I saw, a sort of
curiosity in his gaze. I met his eye defiantly. He turned to the others
and said, in his ordinary, slow way:

"Wall, good night, boys; I've got to go. It's gittin' late, an' I've had
about as much as I want."

Whether he alluded to the drink or to my impertinence I was unable to
divine. Without adding a word he left the room amid a chorus of "Good
night, Sheriff!" With him went Martin and half-a-dozen more.

I thought I had come out of the matter fairly well until I spoke to some
of the men standing near. They answered me, it is true, but in
monosyllables, and evidently with unwillingness. In silence I finished
my whisky, feeling that every one was against me for some inexplicable
cause. I resented this and stayed on. In a quarter of an hour the rest
of the crowd had departed, with the exception of Morris and a few of the
same kidney.

When I noticed that these gamblers, outlaws by public opinion, held away
from me, I became indignant. Addressing myself to Morris, I asked:

"Can you tell me, sir, for you seem to be an educated man, what I have
said or done to make you all shun me?"