At this juncture Judge George Petty turned in from the street, hitting both sides of the snow tunnel as he came. He fumbled at the door-knob in a suspicious manner and then stumbled joyously inside.
"Boys," he announced exuberantly, "I think I heerd the stage."
The group about the red-hot stove regarded him coldly and no one moved. It was like him, the ingrate, to get drunk alone. When he tried to wedge a chair into the circle they made no effort to give him room.
"You don't believe me!" The Judge's mouth, which had been upturned at the corners like a "dry" new moon, as promptly became a "wet" one and drooped as far the other way.
"Somethin' you been takin' must a quickened your hearin'," said Yankee Sam sourly. "She's an hour and a half yet from bein' due."
"'Twere nothin'," he answered on the defensive, "but a few drops of vaniller and some arnicy left over from that sprain. You oughtn't to feel hard toward me," he quavered, wilting under the unfriendly eyes. "I'd a passed it if there'd been enough to go aroun'."
"An' after all we've done fer ye," said Lannigan, "makin' ye Jestice of the Peace to keep ye off the town."
"Jedge," said Uncle Bill deliberately, "you're gittin' almost no-account enough to be a Forest Ranger. I aims to write to Washington when your term is out and git you in the Service."
The Judge jumped up as though he had been stung.
"Bill, we been friends for twenty year, an' I'll take considerable off you, but I want you to understan' they'r a limit. You kin call me a wolf, er a Mormon, er a son-of-a-gun, but, Bill, you can't call me no Forest Ranger! Bill," pleadingly, and his face crumpled in sudden tears, "you didn't mean that, did you? You wouldn't insult an ol', ol' frien'?"
"You got the ear-marks," Uncle Bill replied unmoved. "For a year now you've walked forty feet around that tree that fell across the trail to your cabin rather than stop and chop it out. You sleeps fourteen hours a day and eats the rest. The hardest work you ever do is to draw your money. Hell's catoots! It's a crime to keep a born Ranger like you off the Department's pay-roll."
"You think I'm drunk now and I'll forgit. Well--I won't." The Judge shook a tremulous but belligerent fist. "I'll remember what you said to me the longest day I live, and you've turned an ol', ol' frien' into an enemy. Whur's that waumbat coat what was hangin' here day 'fore yistiday?"
In offended dignity the Judge took the waumbat coat and retreated to the furthermost end of the office, where he covered himself and went to sleep in the plush barber-chair.