“Captain’s jaw is a reg’lar air-trigger; reckon he’ll run the camp when Whitey leaves.”

Straightway a devout respecter of the “powers that be” carried the remark to Whitey, the chief of the camp.

Now, it happened that Whitey, an immense but very peaceable and sensible fellow, had just been discussing with some of his adherents the probable designs of the captain, and this new report seemed to arrive just in time, for Whitey instantly said: 

“Thar he goes agin, d’ye see, pokin’ his shovel in all aroun’.  Now, ef the boys want me to leave, they kin say so, an’ I’ll go.  ’Tain’t the easiest claim in the world to work, runnin’ this camp ain’t, an’ I’ll never hanker to be chief nowhar else; but seein’ I’ve stuck to the boys, an’ seen ’em through from the fust, ’twouldn’t be exactly gent’emanly, ’pears to me.”

And for a moment Whitey hid his emotions in a tin cup, from which escaped perfumes suggesting the rye-fields of Kentucky.

“Nobody wants you to go, Whitey,” said Wolverine, one of the chief’s most faithful supporters.  “Didn’t yer kick that New Hampshire feller out of camp when he kept a-sayin’ the saloon wuz the gate o’ hell?”

“Well,” said the chief, with a flush of modest pride, “I don’t deny it; but I wont remind the boys of it, ef they’ve forgot it.”

“An’ didn’t yer go to work,” said another, “when all the fellers was a-askin’ what was to be done with them Chinesers—­didn’t yer just order the boys to clean ’em out to wunst?”

“That ain’t the best thing yer dun, neither!” exclaimed a third.  “I wonder does any of them galoots forgit how the saloon got a-fire when ev’rybody was asleep—­how the chief turned out the camp, and after the barkeeper got out the door, how the chief rushed in an’ rolled out all three of the barrels, and then went dead-bent fur the river with his clothes all a-blazin’?  Whar’d we hev been for a couple of weeks ef it hadn’t bin fur them bar’ls?”

The remembrance of this gallant act so affected Wolverine, that he exclaimed: 

“Whitey, we’ll stick to yer like tar-an’-feather, an’ ef cap’n an’ his friends git troublesome we’ll jes’ show ’em the trail, an’ seggest they’re big enough to git up a concern uv their own, instid of tryin’ to steal somebody else’s.”

The chief felt that he was still dear to the hearts of his subjects, and so many took pains that day to renew their allegiance that he grew magnanimous—­in fact, when the chief that evening invited the boys to drink, he pushed his own particular bottle to the captain—­an attention as delicate as that displayed by a clergyman when he invites into his pulpit the minister of a different creed.

Still the captain labored.  So often did the latter stand treat that the barkeeper suddenly ran short of liquor, and was compelled, for a week, to restrict general treats to three per diem until he could lay in a fresh stock.

The captain could hit corks and half-dollars in the air almost every time, but no opportunity occurred in which he could exercise his markmanship for the benefit of the camp.