“I reckon I’ll have to rope that Chink, then blindfold and back him into the kitchen, if we git any supper,” said Bailey, disappearing.

Later the Chinaman stole in to set the table, but he worked with hectic and fitful energy, a fearful eye always upon the dim bulk in the corner, and at a fancied move he shook with an ague of apprehension.  Backing and sidling, he finally announced the meal, prepared to stampede madly at notice.

During the supper Shorty ate ravenously of whatever lay to his hand, but asked no favours.  The agony of his shyness paralysed his huge vocal muscles till speech became a labour quite impossible.

To a pleasant remark of the bride he responded, but no sound issued, then breathing heavily into his larynx, the reply roared upon them like a burst of thunder, seriously threatening the gravity of the meal.  He retired abruptly into moist and self-conscious silence, fearful of feasting his eyes on this disturbing loveliness.

As soon as compatible with decency, he slipped back to his bunk in the shed behind, and lay staring into the darkness, picturing the amazing occurrences of the evening.  At the memory of her level glances he fell a-tremble and sighed ecstatically, prickling with a new, strange emotion.  He lay till far into the night, wakeful and absorbed.  He was able, to grasp the fact but dimly that all this dazzling perfection was for one man.  Were it not manifestly impossible he supposed other men in other lands knew other ladies as beautiful, and it furthermore grew upon him blackly, in the thick gloom, that in all this world of womanly sweetness and beauty, no modicum of it was for the misshapen dwarf of the Bar X outfit.  All his life he had fought furiously to uphold the empty shell of his dignity in the eyes of his comrades, yet always morbidly conscious of the difference in his body.  Whisky had been his solace, his sweetheart.  It changed him, raised and beatified him into the likeness of other men, and now, as he pondered, he was aware of a consuming thirst engendered by the heat of his earlier emotions.  Undoubtedly it must be quenched.

He rose and stole quietly out into the big front room.  Perhaps the years of free life in the open had bred a suspicion of walls, perhaps he felt his conduct would not brook discovery, perhaps habit, prompted him to take the two heavy Colts from their holsters and thrust them inside his trousers band.

He slipped across the room, silent and cavern-like, its blackness broken by the window squares of starry sky, till he felt the paucity of glassware behind the bar.

“Here’s to Her,” It burned delightfully.

“Here’s to the groom.”  It tingled more alluringly.

“I’ll drink what I can, and get back to the bunk before it works,” he thought, and the darkness veiled the measure of his potations.

He started at a noise on the stairway.  His senses not yet dulled, detected a stealthy tread.  Not the careless step of a man unafraid, but the cautious rustle and halt of a marauder.  Every nerve bristled to keenest alertness as the faint occasional sounds approached, passed the open end of the bar where he crouched, leading on to the window.  Then a match flared, and the darkness rushed out as a candle wick sputtered.