tsmouth?" Thus he shifted the subject from himself, and called to my
notice the locomotives backing up to his cars, and reminded me that from
Plattsmouth I had the choice of two trains returning. But he could not
hide or belittle this confidence of his employer in him. It was the care
of several thousand perishable dollars and the control of men. It was a
compliment. There were more steers than men to be responsible for; but
none of the steers had been suddenly picked from the herd and set above
his fellows. Moreover, Chicago finished up the steers; but the new-made
deputy foreman had then to lead his six highly unoccupied brethren away
from towns, and back in peace to the ranch, or disappoint the Judge, who
needed their services. These things sometimes go wrong in a land where
they say you are all born equal; and that quarter of a nod in Colonel
Cyrus Jones's eating palace held more equality than any whole nod you
could see. But the Virginian did not see it, there being a time for all
things.

We trundled down the flopping, heavy-eddied Missouri to Plattsmouth,
and there they backed us on to a siding, the Christian Endeavor being
expected to pass that way. And while the equality absorbed themselves in
a deep but harmless game of poker by the side of the railway line,
the Virginian and I sat on the top of a car, contemplating the sandy
shallows of the Platte.

"I should think you'd take a hand," said I.

"Poker? With them kittens?" One flash of the inner man lightened in his
eyes and died away, and he finished with his gentle drawl, "When I play,
I want it to be interestin'." He took out Sir Walter's Kenilworth once
more, and turned the volume over and over slowly, without opening it.
You cannot tell if in spirit he wandered on Bear Creek with the girl
whose book it was. The spirit will go one road, and the thought another,
and the body its own way sometimes. "Queen Elizabeth would have played a
mighty pow'ful game," was his next remark.

"Poker?" said I.

"Yes, seh. Do you expaict Europe has got any queen equal to her at
present?"

I doubted it.

"Victoria'd get pretty nigh slain sliding chips out agaynst Elizabeth.
Only mos' prob'ly Victoria she'd insist on a half-cent limit. You have
read this hyeh Kenilworth? Well, deal Elizabeth ace high, an' she could
scare Robert Dudley with a full house plumb out o' the bettin'."

I said that I believed she unquestionably could.

"And," said the Virginian, "if Essex's