Blake and the child lived in a fair degree of comfort upon the
mother's wages, but often the mother shuddered at thought of what might
happen should she ever lose her position at the photographer's.
Consumption had its hold on Busted Blake when he arrived in the mining-town
called Get-there City, in Kansas, one evening. Get-there City had not
gotten there beyond a single straggling street of shanties. But it had
acquired a saloon, although liquor-selling had already been forbidden in
Kansas.
Busted Blake, with ten cents in his clothes, entered the saloon and asked
in an asthmatic voice for as much whiskey as that sum was good for.
While awaiting a response, his eyes turned toward the only other persons in
the saloon,--three burly, bearded miners of the conventional big-hatted,
big-booted, and big-voiced type. Above their heads and against the wall was
this sign, lettered roughly with charcoal, under a crudely drawn death's
head:
"Five thousand dollars will be paid by the undersigned to the widow of
the sneaking hound that informs on this saloon. This is no meer bluf. P.
GIBBS."
Blake, after a brief coughing fit, looked up at the man behind the bar,--a
great thick-necked fellow with a mien of authority, and yet with a certain
bluff honesty expressed about his eyes and lips.
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