What did
Demorest mean by attacking "innoshent" gentlemen on the trail outside
his cabin? Yes! OUTSIDE his cabin, he would swear it!
"What were you doing here at midnight?" demanded Demorest.
What was he doing? What was any gentleman doing? He wasn't any
molly-coddle to go to bed at ten o'clock! What was he doing? Well--he'd
been with men who didn't shut their doors and turn the boys out just
in the shank of the evening. He wasn't any Barker to be wet-nursed by
Demorest.
"Some one else was here!" said Demorest sternly, with his eyes fixed on
Whiskey Dick. The dull glaze which seemed to veil the outer world from
the drunkard's pupils shifted suddenly with such a look of direct horror
that Demorest was fain to turn away his own. But the veil mercifully
returned, and with it Dick's worked-up sense of injury. Nobody was
there--not "a shole." Did Demorest think if there had been any of
his friends there they would have stood by like "dogsh" and seen him
insulted?
Demorest turned away and re-entered the cabin as Dick lurched heavily
forward, still muttering, down the trail. The excitement over, a
sickening repugnance to the whole incident took the place of Demorest's
resentment and indignation. There had been a cowardly attempt to rob
them of their miserable treasure. He had met it and frustrated it in
almost as brutal a fashion: the gold was already tarnished with blood.
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