McGinty, the slugger, was fairly lifted by that kick and sent spinning through the swinging doors, which opened before him and closed behind him.
“The young feller kicked the slugger out!”
“And it’s the first time anything like that ever happened to the slugger.”
“Young chap, you’d better skip out by the other door, or he’ll kill you.”
“Thank you,” said Frank, quietly, his eyes flashing. “I am minding my business, and I shall not run away from that tough. If he bothers me again I’ll kick him so hard he won’t be able to walk for a week.”
“That’s the stuff!” roared Col. McGraw of Topeka. “The boy is all right! He’s no baby, and anybody who thinks he is makes a mistake. What’ll you have, young man? If I have been touched, I’ve got enough red money left to buy the drinks, and you can have anything you want.”
“I never drink, sir,” answered Frank, calmly.
“Wh-wh-what?” exploded the colonel. “Never drink?—and you kicked McGinty? Oh, say——”
“What do you think of that, Kelley?” asked the Topeka man, in apparent disdain, addressing one of the barkeepers.
The man spoken to seemed so busy that he paid no attention to the question.
“Kelley! Kelley!” Frank mentally exclaimed, taking good note of the man who had been called that. “This must be the Kelley Rafferty directed Hodge to see.”
McGinty did not return, and two or three men went out to see what had become of him. They came back carrying the man Frank had kicked through the door.
“He’s done,” one of them said. “Found him lying outside, and he said he couldn’t get up.”
“Well, why in blazes did you bring him in here?” shouted one of the barkeepers. “Take him into the back room, now.”
As McGinty was carried along he saw Frank.
“Say, young fellow,” he feebly asked, “do your legs run by steam? I was kicked by a mule once, but that wasn’t a patch to this!”
Much to his dismay, Frank found that this little incident had sufficed to draw attention to him. Again and again he was urged to drink. At length, in order to get up to the bar and find a chance to speak to Kelley, he consented to take a plain seltzer.
He reached the end of the bar and Kelley served him. As he did so, Frank thrust a five-dollar bill over the bar, saying:
“No good,” answered Kelley, shoving it back, to Frank’s dismay. “All gone.”