He shook a hairy fist menacingly toward the door through which the man had departed. "It's lucky for him it was old Daddy there 'stead of me he wouldn't drink with or I'd of went to the floor with him an' teached him his manners." "Naw ye wouldn't, Creed," said the old man. "Ye'd done jest loike ye done--set there atop yer barr'l an' blinked. An' when he'd went out ye'd blowed an' bragged an' blustered, an' then fizzled out like a wet fuse. 'Stead of which Oi predic' that the young feller's a real man--once he gets strung out. Anyways, Oi bet he does his foightin' whiles the other feller's there 'stead of settin' 'round an' snortin' folks' whisky full o' cracker-crumbs." He gazed ruefully into his half-filled glass. "Throw it out, Daddy, an' have one on me," offered Burrage, reaching for the jug. With a sly wink toward the others, the old man drained the glass at a gulp and passed it innocently to be refilled. "I'll let him go this time," rumbled Creed with a frown. "He's headin' for Buck Moncrossen's camp--Moncrossen'll break him!" "Or he'll break Moncrossen!" interrupted Daddy, bringing his crutch down upon the floor. "The one camp'll not hold the two o' thim f'r long. Heed ye now, Oi predic' there'll be hell a poppin' on Blood River, an' be this time a year fr' now one o' thim two'll be broke f'r good an' all, an', not to mention no names, it won't be yon stranger." The strong liquor had loosened the tongue of the ordinarily silent old man and he continued: "Oi catched his eye fair; an' 'tis the eye of a foightin' man--an eye, the loike o' which Oi ain't seen since Oi looked f'r the last time in the dead eyes o' Captain Fronte McKim, in the second outbreak o' the wild Boh, Hira Kal, in the brown hills o' the Punjab." The men listened expectantly, for when the liquor was right the old man could tell of strange wars in far climes. "One night the little hillmen sneaked up on Captain Barkley's flyin' battery. They left his head an' his men's stickin' atop a row o' stakes an' dragged the guns to a hilltop overlookin' the pass. An' in the mornin' they unlimbered, sweepin' our left wing. "Fronte McKim was captain o' the Lights an' Oi was a corp'l. All that mornin' the Boh kep' pepperin' away, wi' 'Miss Fanny,' the colonel he was, an' his parade-groun' staff o' book sogers, wi' tables o' figgers an' the book o' rules an' maps an' a pair o' dividers, tryin' to figger out how to chase a bad Boh offen a hilltop wi'out clim'in' the same. "An' he lived a long time after, did Miss Fanny, to die in his bed o' some nice, fine disease, wi' his fambly an' his Scotch an' sody gathered about him. "An' he was put in a foine, big coffin wi' a bran' new flag spread atop to keep off the dust, an' carried back to Englan' in a war-ship, wi' the harbor guns firin' salutes--the whiles Fronte McKim lays back among the hills o' Punjab, wropped in his powder-burnt, shot-tore blanket.