e
striker seemed to hear the words as something spoken afar off. For just
then he was seeing a vision of a drunken mob, and a rope, and a pleading
woman, and a brave old man threatened with death. Just then he heard
harsh and muddled voices, rude oaths, and jeering laughter, and above it
all the sweet pleading of a little girl begging for a father's life. And
the quick blood came into his fair German face, and he felt that he
could not save this Norman Anderson from the toils of the gambler,
though he might, if provoked, pitch him over the guard of the boat. For
was not Andrew's letter, which described the mob, in his pocket, and
burning a hole in his pocket as it had been ever since he received it?

But then this was Julia's brother, and there was nothing he would not
do for Julia. So, sometime after the mud-clerk had ceased to speak, the
striker gave utterance to both impulses by replying, "He's no friend of
mine," a little crisply, and then softly adding, "Though I shouldn't
like to see him fleeced."

By this time a new actor had appeared on the scene in the person of a
man with a black mustache and side-whiskers, who took a seat behind a
card-table near the bar.

"H'llo!" said the mud-clerk in a low and lazy voice, "Parkins is back
again. After his scrape at Paducah last February, he disappeared, and
he's been shady ever since. He's growed whiskers since, so's not to be
recognized. But he'll be skeerce enough when we get to Paducah. Now, see
how quick he'll catch the greenies, won't you?" The prospect was so
charming as almost to stimulate the mud-clerk to speak with some
animation.

But August Wehle, the striker on the Iatan, had an uncomfortable feeling
that he had seen that face before, and that the long mustache and
side-whiskers had grown in a remarkably short space of time. Could it be
that there were two men who could spread a smile over the lower half of
their faces in that automatic way, while the spider-eyes had no sort of
sympathy with it? Surely, this man with black whiskers and mustache was
not just like the singing-master at Sugar-Grove school-house, who had
"red-top hay on to his upper lip," and yet--and yet--

"Gentlemen," said Parkins--his Dickensian name would be Smirkins--"I
want to play a little game just for the fun of the thing. It is a trick
with three cards. I put down three cards, face up. Here is six of
diamonds, eight of spades, and the ace of hearts. Now, I will turn them
over so qu