Jim walked over to the curly-headed boy who had lied so cleverly, and said, “Now, Davey, we can show Bill that you didn’t drink any of Jim’s old rot-gut.” Placing the match and a dollar in Davey’s hands, he said, “Bet you that dollar you can’t blow out the match.” Jim looked at us boys and grinned in a maudlin way. “Light the match and then blow it out, Davey, and the dollar is yours. John and all the boys here know you won’t take a dare; and I dare you!” he taunted. It was then I wished that I could make little crosses like Michael Norton to ward off impending disaster. Jim staggered backwards a little as he continued. “But don’t light the match, Davey, until I get away. I know my old whiskey breath will burn like a house afire.” Davey Cullom stared, looked foolish and finally said, “I don’t want your dollar, Mr. Cardwell.” I shall now explain. Speaking for the gang as well as myself, we thought Davey would put the stuff to his little lips, then, with a wry face, push it away—perhaps spill it on the ground, which, of course, would have tickled us immensely. But the little fellow, feeling that he must make sure of winning the dare, took not one but two small swigs of the raw stuff. Booze was booze then, and it took only a very little of it to make a small boy wobble. If it will help any to put over my alibi I will say now that the “pusillanimous little devil” made that face. Now a bright idea struck one of the gang. I believe it might have been Will Gill—now Dr. W. W. Gill, of Enid, Oklahoma. He would know, of course. Anyway, someone had said, “Come Jim, let’s get your bottle.” They managed somehow to get into the tank-boat and they rowed out to deep water. And there, from some unexplained cause, the boat capsized. Michael Norton crossed himself three times. Then the whole bunch—lifesaver, officers, and all—plunged into the water without stopping to remove clothing, which wouldn’t have been a very big job, at that. Jim was saved, of course. And appreciably sobered. As intimated in the foregoing paragraph, the clothing worn by the tanyard gang during the summer months was almost nil—negligible, at any rate. Always there were rents and patches, and more rents. But the gang did not care. The next day after Davey’s debauch my father came blustering into the house, and bellowed, “Now, who in hell has taken my axe?” My mother said to him in her sweet, calm way, “Oh, don’t be so fussy, William—Davey loaned your axe to Jim Cardwell last night.” Attaching no significance to this fact, nor sensing forebodings, my father laughingly said, “I wonder what Jim thought he could do with an axe, in his pickled condition?” I should like to tell you now that he found that out, to his dismay, all too soon.