In Slaughter's hostelry _bona fide_ travellers had become scarce. Still it was not without guests and patrons in plenty. There were enough "sportsmen" in the place, with adventurers of other kinds, to give the house a custom, and these principally patronised it. From a family hotel, it had changed into a drinking and gambling saloon, and in this respect was prosperous enough. It was the resort of all the dissipated young men of the neighbourhood--and the old ones too. It had public and private parlours, and one of the latter, the landlord's own, was only accessible to the select of his acquaintances--his cronies of a special type. On the evening of that day in which Alfred Brandon had received his dismissal from the daughter of Jerry Rook, this apartment was occupied by six persons, including the landlord himself. They were the same who had figured in the hanging frolic, of which young Robideau had been so near being the victim. On this account, it is not necessary to give their names nor any description of them, farther than to say that all six were as wild and wicked as ever, or, to speak with greater exactitude, wilder and more wicked. It might seem strange that chance had brought these young men together without any other company, but the closed door, and the order for no one to be admitted, showed that their meeting was not by mere accident. Their conversation, already commenced, told that they had met by appointment, as also the purpose of their assembling. It was Alfred Brandon who had summoned them to the secret conclave, and he who made the opening speech, declaring his object in having done so. After "drinks all round," Brandon had said:-- "Well, boys, I've sent for you to meet me here, and here we are, guests; you know why?" "I guess we don't," bluntly responded Buck. "Choc?" suggested Slaughter. "Well, we know it's about Choc," assented the son of the horse dealer; "any fool might guess that. But what about him? Let's hear what you've got to say, Alf." "Well, not much, after all. Only that I think it's high time we took some steps to get rid of this infernal tax we've been paying." "Oh! you're come to that, are you? I thought you would, sometime. But for you, Alf Brandon, we might have done somethin' long ago. I'm out o' pocket clear five hundred dols, and damn me if I intend to pay another cent, come what will or may." "Ditto with you, Bill Buck," endorsed Slaughter. Grubbs, Randall, and Spence were silent, though evidently inclined to the same way of thinking. "I've sworn every year I'd stop it," continued Buck, "an' I'd have done so but for Alf there. It's all very well for him. He's rich, and can stand it. With some of the rest of us it's dog-gone different." "Nonsense!" exclaimed Brandon. "My being rich had nothing to do with it. I was as anxious as any of you to get the load off my shoulders, only I could never see how it was to be done." "Do you see now?" asked Spence.