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to work, not to watch. However, there were enough volunteers for the duty; and Bascom divided the night into two watches: from sundown till midnight, and from midnight till sun-up.

Along about sundown there was a great to-do in camp about the men who were to watch during the latter part of the night. An early supper was made in order that these men might go to bed early and obtain a half night's sleep. The other men in camp were cautioned to keep quiet to promote their rest. Sure enough, when supper was finished, the appointed men got up from the benches in the mess tent and filed off to their bunks. There was a certain sacrificial air about it which impressed their fellows. They were giving up their nightly gambling, drinking, fighting, and cursing for the benefit of their comrades and the good of the county. Among those who retired at this early hour was Abner Teeftallow.

All this parade about going to bed effectively banished sleep for Abner. He was not tired from his day's labour. He was in his rubbery teens and was keyed to days of toil and nights of carousing. So he lay on his bunk, listening to the flap of his tent in the windy night, and the occasional outburst of some excited crap shooter who forgot the camp pledge of silence and invoked a return of Little Joe or Big Dick from Boston.

Somewhat later in the night Abner heard a bootlegger and a customer just outside his tent chaffering over the price of a pint of moonshine liquor. Abner reflected that a pint of whisky might get him to sleep before midnight, and later, when he went on watch, it might help him stay awake till morning. So he got out of his blankets, put on his shoes, went around and bought the pint from a man in the black shadow of his tent wall.

He took a swallow of the fiery liquid; rubbed the top of the bottle, gave the vender a drink, and went back to bed with his purchase.

After his mouth and throat stopped burning, the current