"Ye gilravagin’ deevil!" he shouted, "canna ye see an inch afore yer ain nase? Gin ye hae nae better manners na a gyte bull, gang oot to grass like thae ither cattle. Lord preserv’s," he prayed, following the strained intensity of Bow-Wow’s gaze, "look at the cheeny! A ’m ruined!" He started to gather up the broken crockery when the roar of laughter, no longer to be restrained, assailed his outraged ears. He looked sourly at his guests. "Ou, ay, ye maun lauch, but wha’s to pay for the cheeny? Ou, ay! A ken weel eneuch!" The hilarious company pushed into the dining-room and began to help him in his task, casting many jocose reproaches on the overburdened Bow-Wow. Slick returned to the bar-room to clean off the bar before eating, and Buck went after him. "Hey, what have I struck?" he asked, with much curiosity. "He sounds worse ’n a circus." "He ’s mad," explained Slick. "Nobody on God’s green earth can understand him when he ’s mad. Which a circus is music alongside o’ him. When he ’s ca’m, he talks purty good American." "You shore relieves my mind. What is he—Roosian?" "Claims to be Scotch. But I dunno—a Scotchman ’s a sort of Englishman, ain’t he?" "That was allus my opinion," agreed Buck. "Well—I dunno," and Slick shook his head doubtfully as he hung the towel onto a handy hook and stooped to come under the bar. "Sounds funny to me, all right. ’Tain’t English; not by a h—l of a sight." "Sounds funny to me," echoed Buck. "I ’m _shore_ it ain’t English. But, say, Slick; gimme a room. I ’m stoppin’ here an’ I ’d like to drop my things where I can find ’em." "Right," said Slick, and he led the way into the hall and toward a bedroom at the rear. Chesty Sutton stood in the doorway of the dining-room. "Better git in on th’ jump, Cheyenne," he advised, anxiously. "Bow-Wow ’s that savage, he’s boltin’ his grub in chunks an’ there ain’t goin’ to be a whole lot left for stragglers." "Muzzle him," replied Buck, over his saddle-weighted shoulder, while Slick only grinned, "If I goes hungry, I eats Bow-Wow. Dog ain’t so bad." Chesty chuckled and returned to the sulky Bow-Wow with the warning. Despite Chesty’s fears, there was plenty to eat and to spare. Little talking was done, as every one was hungry, with the possible exception of Ned, and even he would have passed for a hungry man. Sandy McQueen and the cook officiated and the race was so nearly a dead heat that the first to finish was hardly across the hall before the last pushed his chair back from the table. An immediate adjournment to the bar-room was the customary withdrawal, and Buck, doing as the others, found Ned in his former seat beside a table. Buck joined him and showed such an evident desire for privacy that the others forbore to intrude. "Ned," said Buck, leaning towards him across the table, "it ain’t none of my business, an’ it ain’t as I ’m just curious, but was that straight, what you said about bein’ broke?"