"Hulloa! boys!" cried a deep hearty voice from within the barroom.
"Hulloa! boys! Walk in! walk in! What the eternal h-ll are you about
there?"
Well, we did walk into a large neat bar-room, with a bright hickory log
crackling upon the hearth-stone, a large round table in one corner,
covered with draught-boards, and old newspapers, among which showed
preeminent the "Spirit of the Times;" a range of pegs well stored with
great-coats, fishing-rods, whips, game-bags, spurs, and every other
stray appurtenance of sporting, gracing one end; while the other was
more gaily decorated by the well furnished bar, in the right-hand angle
of which my eye detected in an instant a handsome nine pound double
barrel, an old six foot Queen Ann's tower-musket, and a long
smooth-bored rifle; and last, not least, outstretched at easy length
upon the counter of his bar, to the left-hand of the gang-way--the right
side being more suitably decorated with tumblers, and decanters of strange
compounds--supine, with fair round belly towering upward, and head
voluptuously pillowed on a heap of wagon cushions--lay in his glory--but
no! hold!--the end of a chapter is no place to introduce--Tom Draw!*
[*It is almost a painful task to read over and revise this chapter.
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