d to his empty
eye-socket. "Pluggie was one of your furriners--jest like Mex, but
not so pooty."

"If she was half as handsome as Mex," said Pierce, "I don't wonder
that you gave your right eye for her."

To this compliment Mex responded by resentfully casting the contents
of a whiskey glass into Pierce's face and breast, whereupon the men
all laughed loud.

"You dasn't smoke the senorita, cap," mumbled Nine Eyes, aside to
Pierce.

"The purtiest wench I ever seen," babbled Sheldrake, "was the one me
and you spied through the winder at Blennerhassett's, that night Aaron
Burr and his pard from Virginy stopped over. I'll never forgit how we
snuck up and seen them two sparkin' on the sofy."

"Right you are, Abe; and I was a damned fool not to nab her that day,
when she was pullin' posies in the woods--"

"She'd of been a screechin' armful for you, Burke, with them shiny
yaller curls of hern flyin' over your shoulder!"

This side colloquy, Mex heard, and her countenance glowered.
Noiselessly she came to the bench upon which Palafox sat, and pressed
close to his side. The captain, without looking at her, mechanically
stroked her long mane.

"Fine wimming," remarked Sott, sagely, "is like pizen vine, pooty and
clingin,' but pesky dangerous; I hadn't better teched Pluggie. A
woming of your own is worse yet. She spiles on you, and you can't sell
her as you do a hoss or a nigger."

Pierce looked at the darky, who grinned self-consciously.

"How many times over has Abe sold you since you ran away from the
island?"

"Seben times," answered Honest Moses, and chuckled. "Mistah Sheldrake
done sell me fo' cash, plunk down; I fugitives back to him, and he
done sell me agin fo' mo' cash. I gits mo' money out o' speculatin' in
dis heah darky, dan Scipio and Dan'l can git ahookin' watermillions
fo' a hundred yeahs."

Nine Eyes took up his dropped theme.

"The hoss trade," said he, "the hoss trade don't pay here as it did
with Wilson's boys. There's more risk in gettin' rid of a hoss than in
sellin' the same nigger ten times over. Say, cap, is your new man onto
the pass words and signs?" The speaker flung out three fingers of his
left hand, to which signal Pierce responded by an answering gesture.
But the captain had grown tired of Cacosotte's conversation. He
ordered Mex to bring him another drink. Then, turning to Sheldrake, he
said in undertones:

"Abe, you mind that trip from Pittsburg to Massac. Recollect what I
to