Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/233

 "I took cyar of myse'f," he whimpered. "I carried a gun—I was plumb watchful. If it'd be'n done fair—hit couldn't of be'n done."

He had never turned his back on any man. He had kept his customers the other side of the bar. He hired a man for bartender only after the most careful and persistent inquiry. He never trusted his help beyond a certain point.

Then he hired a mere youth who seemed a treasure and who was the fastest man to fill the glasses, the surest man with the change, the swiftest man at making a landing, and the quickest one to make his getaway. This man was true and faithful, apparently, and he went forth into the cotton fields, and brought down whole crews of pickers to patronize his bar. The very excellence of the man made his bitterness the greater, now that he recalled what had happened.

One day, as they were dropping down a bend going from landing to landing, Storit's fight went out. He was felled by a blow from behind. But as he went down, his fires glimmering, he received the impression that his bartender had struck him on the head a foul blow from which he could not possibly save himself, and for which he was utterly unprepared.

He came to in a hospital. What his ventures had been between the minute of the blow and his awakening he had no idea. He had been brought into