."

"Tell you-all a gamblin' tale," he repeated, and then mused as if
lost in retrospection. "If I hesitates it's because of a multitoode
of incidents from which to draw. I've beheld some mighty cur'ous
doin's at the gamblin' tables. Once I knows a party who sinks his
hopeless head on the layout an' dies as he loses his last chip. This
don't happen in Wolfville none. No, I don't say folks ain't cashed
in at farobank in that excellent hamlet an' gone singin' to their
home above; but it ain't heart disease. Usual it's guns; the same
bein' invoked by sech inadvertencies as pickin' up some other gent's
bet.

"Tell you-all a story about gamblin'! Now I reckons the time Faro
Nell rescoos Cherokee Hall from rooin is when I sees the most
_dinero_ changed in at one play. You can gamble that's a thrillin'
eepisode when Faro Nell steps in between Cherokee an' the destroyer.
It's the gossip of the camp for days, an' when Wolfville discusses
anything for days that outfit's plumb moved.

"This gent who crowds Cherokee to the wall performs the feat
deliberate. He organises a sort o' campaign ag'in Cherokee; what you
might term a fiscal dooel, an' at the finish he has Cherokee
corralled for his last _peso_. It's at that p'int Nell cuts in an'
redeems the sityooation a heap. It's all on the squar'; this
invadin' sport simply outlucks the bank. That, an' the egreegious
limit Cherokee gives him, is what does the trick.

"In Wolfville, we-all allers recalls that sharp-set gent who comes
after Cherokee with respect. In fact he wins our encomiums before he
sets in ag'in Cherokee--before ever he gets his second drink at the
Red Light bar. He comes ramblin' over with Old Monte from Tucson one
evenin'; that's the first glimpse we has of him. An' for a hour,
mebby, followin' his advent, seein' the gen'ral herd is busy with the
mail, he has the Red Light to himse'f.

"On this yere o'casion, thar's likewise present in Wolfville--he's
been infringin' 'round some three days--a onsettled an' migratory
miscreant who's name is Ugly Collins. He's in a heap of ill repoote
in the territories, this Ugly Collins is; an' only he contreebutes
the information when he arrives in camp that his visit is to be
mighty temp'rary, Enright would have signed up Jack Moore to take his
guns an' stampede him a lot.

"At the time I'm talkin' of, as thar's no one who's that abandoned as
to go writin' letters to Ugly Collins, it befalls he's plenty
f