' a crack on the head and the
camp fever."

"Into anything to put in the time?"

"Naah," said Shorty weariedly. "Nearly dead for something. Awful stoopid
layin' around up there among them hayseeds, doin' nothin'. Jest run down
to Jeffersonville to see if I couldn't strike something that'd some life
in it."

"Well, I kin let you into a good thing. I've bin runnin' that shebang
over there, with another man, and doin' well, but he let his temper git
away with him, and shpped a knife into a sucker, and they've got him
in jail, where he'll stay awhile. I must have another partner. Got any
money?"

"A hundred or so," answered Shorty.

"Well, that's enough. I don't want money so much as the right kind of a
man. Put up your stuff, and I'll let you in cahoots with me, and we'll
make a bar'l o' money out o' these new troops that'll begin coming down
this week."

"I like the idee. But how do you know you kin run your game. This
Provost-Marshall--"

"O, the Provost's all right. He's an old friend o' mine. I have him
dead to rights. Only whack up fair with him, and you're all right. Only
pinches them that want to hog on him and won't share. I've bin runnin'
right along here for weeks, and 've had no trouble. I give up my little
divvy whenever he asks for it."

"If I was only certain o' that," said Shorty meditatively, "I'd--"

"Certain? Come right over here to that ranch, and have a drink, and I'll
show you, so's you can't be mistaken. I tell you, I'm solid as a rock
with him."

When seated at a quiet table, with their glasses in front of them, the
gambler pulled some papers from his breast pocket, and selecting one
shoved it at Shorty with the inquiry: "There, what do you think o'
that?"

Shorty read over laboriously:

"Deer Bat: Send me 50 please. I set behind two small pair
last night, while the other feller had a full, & Ime strapt
this morning. Yores,

"Billings."

"That seems convincing," said Shorty.

"Then look at this," said the gambler, producing another paper. It read:

"Deer Bat: Got yore $100 all right, but doant send by that
man again. He's shaky, and talks too much. Bring it
yourself, or put it in an envelope directed to me, & drop it
in my box. Yores,

"Billings."

"That's enough," said Shorty, with his mind in a tumult, as to how he
was to get these papers into his possession. "I'll go in with you, if
you'll take me. Here's my fist."

He reach