.m. Sally
Meeker."

It was clear now; the sender of the dispatch was "in the know." Sally
Meeker was to win, and her owner, who did not know it, had offered her
for sale. At that supreme moment Mr. Stenner would willingly have been a
rich man! In fact he resolved to be. He at once betook him to Vallejo,
where he had lived until invited away by some influential citizens of
the place. There he immediately sought out an industrious friend who had
an amiable weakness for draw poker, and in whom Mr. Stenner regularly
encouraged that passion by going up against him every payday and
despoiling him of his hard earnings. He did so this time, to the sum of
one hundred dollars.

No sooner had he raked in his last pool and refused his friend's appeal
for a trifling loan wherewith to pay for breakfast than he bought a
check on the Bank of California, enclosed it in a letter containing
merely the words "Bi Saly Meker," and dispatched it by mail to the only
clergyman in San Francisco whose name he knew. Mr. Stenner had a vague
notion that all kinds of business requiring strict honesty and fidelity
might be profitably intrusted to the clergy; otherwise what was the use
of religion? I hope I shall not be accused of disrespect to the cloth in
thus bluntly setting forth Mr. Stenner's estimate of the parsons,
inasmuch as I do not share it.

This business off his mind, Mr. Stenner unbent in a week's revelry; at
the end of which he worked his passage down to San Francisco to secure
his winnings on the race, and take charge of his peerless mare. It will
be observed that his notions concerning races were somewhat confused;
his experience of them had hitherto been confined to that branch of the
business requiring, not technical knowledge but manual dexterity. In
short, he had done no more than pick the pockets of the spectators.
Arrived at San Francisco he was hastening to the dwelling of his
clerical agent, when he met an acquaintance, to whom he put the
triumphant question, "How about Sally Meeker?"

"Sally Meeker? Sally Meeker?" was the reply. "Oh, you mean the hoss? Why
she's gone up the flume. Broke her neck the first heat. But ole Sim
Salper is never a-goin' to fret hisself to a shadder about it. He struck
it pizen in the mine she was named a'ter and the stock's gone up from
nothin' out o' sight. You couldn't tech that stock with a ten-foot
pole!"

Which was a blow to Mr. Stenner. He saw his error; the message in the
coat had evide