“Why bless your soul, Arkansas, I warn’t thinking of such a thing.  My father and my mother—­”

“Lan’lord, don’t crowd a man!  Don’t do it.  If nothing’ll do you but a disturbance, out with it like a man (’ic)—­but don’t rake up old bygones and fling’em in the teeth of a passel of people that wants to be peaceable if they could git a chance.  What’s the matter with you this mornin’, anyway?  I never see a man carry on so.”

“Arkansas, I reely didn’t mean no harm, and I won’t go on with it if it’s onpleasant to you.  I reckon my licker’s got into my head, and what with the flood, and havin’ so many to feed and look out for—­”

“So that’s what’s a-ranklin’ in your heart, is it?  You want us to leave do you?  There’s too many on us.  You want us to pack up and swim.  Is that it?  Come!”

“Please be reasonable, Arkansas.  Now you know that I ain’t the man to—­”

“Are you a threatenin’ me?  Are you?  By George, the man don’t live that can skeer me!  Don’t you try to come that game, my chicken—­’cuz I can stand a good deal, but I won’t stand that.  Come out from behind that bar till I clean you!  You want to drive us out, do you, you sneakin’ underhanded hound!  Come out from behind that bar!  I’ll learn you to bully and badger and browbeat a gentleman that’s forever trying to befriend you and keep you out of trouble!”

“Please, Arkansas, please don’t shoot!  If there’s got to be bloodshed—­”

“Do you hear that, gentlemen?  Do you hear him talk about bloodshed?  So it’s blood you want, is it, you ravin’ desperado!  You’d made up your mind to murder somebody this mornin’—­I knowed it perfectly well.  I’m the man, am I?  It’s me you’re goin’ to murder, is it?  But you can’t do it ‘thout I get one chance first, you thievin’ black-hearted, white-livered son of a nigger!  Draw your weepon!”

With that, Arkansas began to shoot, and the landlord to clamber over benches, men and every sort of obstacle in a frantic desire to escape.  In the midst of the wild hubbub the landlord crashed through a glass door, and as Arkansas charged after him the landlord’s wife suddenly appeared in the doorway and confronted the desperado with a pair of scissors!  Her fury was magnificent.  With head erect and flashing eye she stood a moment and then advanced, with her weapon raised.  The astonished ruffian hesitated, and then fell back a step.  She followed.  She backed him step by step into the middle of the bar-room, and then, while the wondering crowd closed up and gazed, she gave him such another tongue-lashing as never a cowed and shamefaced braggart got before, perhaps!  As she finished and retired victorious, a roar of applause shook the house, and every man ordered “drinks for the crowd” in one and the same breath.

The lesson was entirely sufficient.  The reign of terror was over, and the Arkansas domination broken for good.  During the rest of the season of island captivity, there was one man who sat apart in a state of permanent humiliation, never mixing in any quarrel or uttering a boast, and never resenting the insults the once cringing crew now constantly leveled at him, and that man was “Arkansas.”