by tears, and his young shoulders drooped woefully. The dog came forward
and licked his twitching fingers.

"Allie is dead," he whispered.

"Curly, I should like to apply for the position of dealer over at your
place, which yesterday was my place," said Faro Sam, next day at noon,
meeting Curly on the street.

"Sure, you can have it, Sam. Too bad it's the custom for the house to
go, too, when somebody breaks the bank. I've turned it over to George
Spellman, with a thousand to start with. He and I come from the same
place back in the States. Great friends we were, till we both got to
sparkin' the same girl. When she took me, George, he got pretty ornery,
but I guess he's all over it by this time. I'm goin' home to marry her,
now.

"I've just been around to the tents seein' about little Allie's funeral,
an' he'll keep on the girls, too. I'm pullin' my freight for Hangtown
(Placerville). This town's a little too small for a fellow of my means."

Faro Sam looked after him with a cynical light in his narrow eyes.

"The pot bubbles loudest when the water's nearest the bottom," he
muttered, and turned to pick a fastidious way through the mud.

Life that night in the gambling hell went on much as usual. Teddy Karns
"poured the rye," and Faro Sam "slipped the cards," whilst Babe worried
over Bouncing Bet's intoxicated condition.

"It's Allie, you know," Babe confided to Red Shirt Pete at midnight.
"She took it awful hard, and Spellman, the new boss, wouldn't let 'er
off tonight. I bin tellin' 'er Allie's better off, but she won't listen
to nobody. She's just bin pourin' 'em down all evenin'. What's that?"
at a loud banging on the doors. Some one opened them and Curly rode into
the place on the handsome horse he had bought that morning.

"Well, boys, I'm cleaned! Tried to copper the jack in Hangtown and
the whole $50,000 went. George, I'll be askin' for this place back, I
guess."

"This place belongs to me, Curly Gillmore."

"Who says so?"

"This old lady says so," covering him with his pistol.

Curly laughed, not too musically. "Well, boys, what am I bid for this
horse? I need a grubstake."

"Play you for him," said Faro Sam, laconically.

"Done," said Curly. A moment later he laughed once more and swung down
off the Spanish thoroughbred. "He's yours. Well, good-night, boys."

No one answered. He had, like Hadji the beggar, become in twenty-four
hours again a drifter.

Babe sneaked out after him. "Here, Cu