“Sure,” said Hale. And others, who might have been bad men, became members and, thus getting a vent for their energies, were as enthusiastic for the law as they might have been against it. Of course, the antagonistic element in the town lost no opportunity to plague and harass the Guard, and after the destruction of the “blind tigers,” mischief was naturally concentrated in the high-license saloons--particularly in the one run by Jack Woods, whose local power for evil and cackling laugh seemed to mean nothing else than close personal communion with old Nick himself. Passing the door of his saloon one day, Bob saw one of Jack's customers trying to play pool with a Winchester in one hand and an open knife between his teeth, and the boy stepped in and halted. The man had no weapon concealed and was making no disturbance, and Bob did not know whether or not he had the legal right to arrest him, so he turned, and, while he was standing in the door, Jack winked at his customer, who, with a grin, put the back of his knife-blade between Bob's shoulders and, pushing, closed it. The boy looked over his shoulder without moving a muscle, but the Hon. Samuel Budd, who came in at that moment, pinioned the fellow's arms from behind and Bob took his weapon away. “Hell,” said the mountaineer, “I didn't aim to hurt the little feller. I jes' wanted to see if I could skeer him.” “Well, brother, 'tis scarce a merry jest,” quoth the Hon. Sam, and he looked sharply at Jack through his big spectacles as the two led the man off to the calaboose: for he suspected that the saloon-keeper was at the bottom of the trick. Jack's time came only the next day. He had regarded it as the limit of indignity when an ordinance was up that nobody should blow a whistle except a member of the Guard, and it was great fun for him to have some drunken customer blow a whistle and then stand in his door and laugh at the policemen running in from all directions. That day Jack tried the whistle himself and Hale ran down. “Who did that?” he asked. Jack felt bold that morning. “I blowed it.” Hale thought for a moment. The ordinance against blowing a whistle had not yet been passed, but he made up his mind that, under the circumstances, Jack's blowing was a breach of the peace, since the Guard had adopted that signal. So he said: “You mustn't do that again.” Jack had doubtless been going through precisely the same mental process, and, on the nice legal point involved, he seemed to differ. “I'll blow it when I damn please,” he said. “Blow it again and I'll arrest you,” said Hale.