Lee grabbed the broached cask and edged it toward the doorway. The contents slopped and sloshed inside as he moved it, and occasionally a little of the stuff would spill out through the bunghole. Then, somehow, just as he got it to the door, his hold slipped, out it went, bounded on the edge of the ties, and then went down the embankment right into the hands of those squatting “blankets.” They didn’t squat long; I don’t need to tell you that. They were on it in a mob, and they got the taste--they’d had the smell--and the fill was to come presently. Clancy was cursing in streams; and no fouler-mouthed man than Clancy ever lived. He tried once to get the Indians off the barrel, and the stragglers backed him up half-heartedly. You might as well have tried to move that mogul on the pit there behind you. He didn’t try but once, then he fell back on cursing again, and Perley was the target for most of it. Perley? He never answered him, but his face grew harder and harder--and his gun was in his hand again. “Throw out those other two barrels!” he snapped at Lee. “The redskins will get every last drop if I do,” objected Lee, hesitating. “Owner’s risk. We’ve no station here. Throw ‘em out!” repeated Perley, grimmer than before, only this time loud enough for Clancy to hear him. “Ye do,” roared the half-breed, “ye do, an’ I’ll worse than murdher ye one of these----” “Throw ‘em out!” said Perley quietly, waving the go-ahead signal to the engine crew. And out they went--down the embankment after the first. Lee jumped to the ground and banged the door shut, just as the drawbars began to snap tight along the train and the local jolted into motion. He waited beside Perley to swing the caboose as it came up. And while he waited he watched and grinned. Funny? I don’t know; it depends on the way you look at it, depends on what you call fun. Lee thought it was funny--then. The air was full of curses, Indian yells, shouts, oaths; and there was one jumbled mess of arms, and legs, and barrels. The Indians were after their _fill_, and this time Clancy and the stragglers were in the game for keeps. Up ahead the engine crew hung grinning out of the gangway. Behind, the other brakeman was occupying a reserved seat on the top of the caboose. A quarter of a mile away over by the camp, men, attracted by the shouting, were beginning to run toward the track. Inconsistent kind of a mix-up, eh?--Indians, miners, whisky barrels, and railroaders. I don’t know; call it funny if you like, though perhaps you can size it up better when I’m through. By this time the caboose was up to where Perley and Lee were standing. Perley motioned Lee aboard, and then swung on himself.