“Oh, you'll be attended to all right, Captain Duncan,” said the clerk, with a laugh, as he stood at the register behind the counter. “Pole Baker was in here last night asking if you had arrived. He said he had brought a buggy and was going to drive you back. You will make it all right if Pole sobers up long enough to get out of town. He was thoroughly 'how-come-you-so' last night. He was in Asque's bar raising holy Cane. The marshal ordered Billy to close at twelve, but Pole wouldn't hear to it, and they came in an inch of having a fight. I believe they would if Mrs. Johnston hadn't heard it and come down. Pole has more respect for women than most men, and as soon as he saw her at the door he hushed up and went to bed.” “He's as straight as a shingle this morning, captain,” put in Charlie Smith, a mulatto porter, who was rolling a pair of trucks across the room laden with a drummer's enormous, brass-bound trunk. “He was up before day asking if you got in durin' the night.” “Well, I'm glad he's sobered up if he's to take me out,” said the planter. “He's about the biggest dare-devil out our way. You know him, don't you, Mayhew?” “Know him? Humph! to the extent of over three hundred dollars. My partner thinks the sun rises and sets in him and never will close down on him. They are great friends. Floyd will fight for him at the drop of a hat. He says Pole has more manhood in him to the square inch than any man in the county, white or black. He saw him in a knock-down-and-drag-out row in the public square last election. They say Pole whipped three bigger men than he is all in a bunch, and bare-handed at that. Nobody knows to this day how it started. Nelson doesn't, but I heard it was some remark one of the fellows made about Nelson himself. You know my partner had a rather strange start in life--a poor boy with nobody to see to his bringing-up, but that's a subject that even his best friends don't mention to him.” The captain nodded understanding. “They tell me Pole used to be a moonshiner,” he said; “and I have heard that he was the shrewdest one in the mountains. His wife got him to quit it. I understand he fairly worships the ground she walks on, and there never was a better father to his children.”