e," said Mackenzie, "and keep the
rest. I don't need money; I've got two national banks full of it up
there in Montana now."

"Lord knows I need it!" said the doctor, beginning to sweat over the
nearness to visions which he once believed he should never overhaul.

He stepped along so fast in his eagerness to come up with and lay hands
on them that Mackenzie was thrown into a trot to keep up.

"I don't know who you are or where you came from," said Mackenzie, "but
you're not a crook, anyhow. That money's yours; you got it out of him as
beautiful as I ever saw a man skinned in my day. But if you don't want
to tip it off, that's your business."

"It was a chance," said the doctor, recalling a night beside the river
and the words of Agnes when she spoke of that theme, "and I had the
sense and the courage for once to take it."

In the cafe-tent where they had taken their supper they sat with a stew
of canned oysters between them, and made the division of the money which
the lost die had won. Mackenzie would accept no more than the two
hundred dollars which he had lost on Shanklin's game, together with the
five hundred and ten advanced in the hope of regaining it.

It was near midnight when they parted, Mackenzie to seek his
lodging-place, Dr. Slavens to make the rounds of the stores in the
hope of finding one open in which he could buy a new outfit of
clothing. They were all closed and dark. The best that he could do
toward improving his outcast appearance was to get shaved. This done,
he found lodging in a place where he could have an apartment to
himself, and even an oil-lamp to light him to his rest.

Sitting there on the side of his bed, he explored the pockets of Hun
Shanklin's coat. There were a number of business cards, advertising
various concerns in Comanche, which Shanklin had used for recording his
memoranda; two telegrams, and a printed page of paper, folded into small
space. There was nothing more.

The paper was an extra edition of _The Chieftain_, such as the doctor
had grown sadly familiar with on the day of the drawing. With a return
of the heartsickness which he had felt that day, he unfolded it far
enough to see the date. It was the day of the drawing. He dropped the
half-folded sheet to the floor and took up the telegrams.

One, dated the day before, was from Meander. The other was evidently
Shanklin's reply, which perhaps had not been filed, or perhaps was a
copy. The first read:

Can close