arrogant contention, but they did not live long enough to maintain
their own well-earned reputations as objectionable citizens. Thus
Hickory Sam reigned supreme in Salt Lick, and every one in the place
was willing and eager to stand treat to Sam, or to drink with him when
invited.

Sam's chief place of resort in Salt Lick was the Hades Saloon, kept by
Mike Davlin. Mike had not originally intended this to be the title of
his bar, having at first named it after a little liquor cellar he kept
in his early days in Philadelphia, called "The Shades," but some cowboy
humourist, particular about the external fitness of things, had scraped
out the letter "S," and so the sign over the door had been allowed to
remain. Mike did not grumble. He had taken a keen interest in politics
in Philadelphia, but an unexpected spasm of civic virtue having
overtaken the city some years before, Davlin had been made a victim,
and he was forced to leave suddenly for the West, where there was no
politics, and where a man handy at mixing drinks was looked upon as a
boon by the rest of the community. Mike did not grumble when even the
name "Hades" failed to satisfy the boys in their thirst for appropriate
nomenclature, and when they took to calling the place by a shorter and
terser synonym beginning with the same letter, he made no objections.

Mike was an adaptive man, who mixed drinks, but did not mix in rows. He
protected himself by not keeping a revolver, and by admitting that he
could not hit his own saloon at twenty yards distance. A residence in
the quiet city of Philadelphia is not conducive to the nimbling of the
trigger finger. When the boys in the exuberance of their spirits began
to shoot, Mike promptly ducked under his counter and waited till the
clouds of smoke rolled by. He sent in a bill for broken glass, bottles,
and the damage generally, when his guests were sober again, and his