"Have another drink!"

"Thank you."

Peabody drank again, this time with a friend of Jack's, a man of his own
stripe, who straggled into the saloon.

"Do you play euchre?" asked Jack, producing a dirty pack of cards.

"I know little of it," said Peabody; "but I'll try a game."

"Then you and me and Bill here will have a game."

"All right," said Peabody, glad to while away the time.

"What'll you put up on your game, stranger?" asked Bill.

"You don't mean to play for money, do you?" asked Peabody, a little
startled.

"Sartain I do. What's the good of playin' for nothing?"

So the young Bostonian, out of his modest pile was tempted to stake an
ounce of gold-dust. Though his head was hardly in a condition to follow
the game intelligently, he won, or at least Bill and Jack told him he
had, and for the first time Lawrence felt the rapture of the successful
gambler, as he gathered in his winnings.

"He plays a steep game, Bill," said Jack.

"Tip-top--A No. 1."

"I believe I do play a pretty good game," said the flattered Peabody.
"My friends in Boston used to say so."

"You're hard to beat, and no mistake," said Bill. "Try another game."

"I'm ready, gentlemen," said Peabody, with alacrity.

"It's a great deal easier earning money this way," he reflected,
regarding complacently the two ounces of dust which represented his
winnings, "than washing dirt out of the river." And the poor dupe
congratulated himself that a new way of securing the favors of fortune
had been opened to him.

The reader will easily guess that Lawrence Peabody did not win the next
game, nor will he be surprised to hear that when he left the saloon his
pockets were empty.

"Better luck next time, stranger," said Jack, carelessly. "Take a drink
before you go?"

Peabody accepted the invitation, and soon after staggered into the tent
occupied by Tom and his friend Ferguson.

"What's the matter, Mr. Peabody?" asked Tom. "Are you sick?"

"Yes," answered Peabody, sinking to the floor. "Something's the matter
with my head. I don't feel well."

"Have you been to the saloon, Mr. Peabody?" asked Ferguson.

"Yes," answered the Bostonian.

"And while there you drank some of their vile whiskey, didn't you?"

"I'm a free man, Mr. Ferguson. If I choose to drink, what--what business
is it--yours?"

"None, except as a friend I advise you not to go there again."

Further inquiries elicited the facts about the gambling, and Ferguson
an