"You're Dan McLeod, aren't you?" suggested Barrett, leaning across
the table and looking sharply at me.
"That's me," I said in turn, and sized him up. I didn't like his
face; it was the undeniable face of a liar--small, uncertain eyes,
set together close like those of a fox, a thin nose, a narrow,
womanish chin that accorded with his girlish actions of coaxing,
and a mouth I didn't quite understand.
Jake had come up with the bottle, but before he could put it on the
table Barrett snatched it like a starving dog would a hunk of meat.
He peered at the label, squinting his foxy eyes, then laughed up at
Jake.
"I hope you don't sell the Indians _this_," he said, tapping the
capsule.
No, Jake never sold a drop of whiskey to Indians,--the law, you
know, was very strict and--
"Oh, I don't care whatever else you sell them," said Barrett, "but
their red throats would never appreciate fine twelve-year-old like
this. Come, boys."
We came.
"So you're Dan McLeod," he continued after the first long pull,
"I've heard about you, too. You've got a deck of cards in your
pocket--haven't you? Let's have a game."
I looked at him, and though, as I said in the beginning, I'm not a
good man, I felt honestly sorry for the old missionary and his wife
at that moment.
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