arms appended, and a chief who presided over them in a
little box-house, where he might be seen with his coat off and a diamond
in the front of his white shirt, smoking cigars all day, his heels on
the window-sill.

As Dr. Slavens had not appeared at the time designated as her limit by
Agnes, Bentley went with her to the chief's office to place the matter
before him. It was well that they did not go there for sympathy, and
unfortunate that they expected help. The chief received them with
disdainful aloofness which amounted almost to contempt. He seemed to
regard their appeal to him for the elucidation of the doctor's mystery
as an affront.

The chief was a short man, who vainly believed that he could sustain his
trousers in dignified position about his hipless body with a belt. The
result of this misplaced confidence was a gap between waistcoat and
pantaloons, in which his white shirt appeared like a zebra's stripe.

He was a much-bedizened and garnitured man, for all that he lacked a
coat to hang his ornaments upon. Stones of doubtful value and
unmistakable size ornamented the rings upon his stocky fingers, and
dangled in an elaborate "charm" upon the chain of his watch. The only
name they ever addressed him by in Comanche other than his official
title was Ten-Gallon. Whether this had its origin in his capacity, or
his similarity of build to a keg, is not known, but he accepted it with
complacency and answered to it with pride.

Ten-Gallon was the chief guardian of the interests of the gamblers'
trust of Comanche, which was responsible for his elevation to
office--for even the office itself--and which contributed the fund out
of which his salary came. It is a curious anomaly of civilization,
everywhere under the flag which stretched its stripes in the wind above
the little land-office at Comanche, that law-breaking thrives most
prosperously under the protection of law.

Gambling in itself had not been prohibited by statute at that time in
Wyoming, though its most profitable side diversions--such as dropping
paralyzing poisons in a man's drink, snatching his money and clearing
out with it, cracking him on the head with a leaden billet, or standing
him up at the point of a pistol and rifling him--were, as now,
discountenanced under the laws.

But what profit is there in gambling if the hangers-on, the cappers, the
steerers, and the snatchers of crumbs in all cannot find protection
under the flag and its institutio