rd led him to suspect that
something unusual had taken place, but as nobody seemed to be willing
to supply details, he returned to Silverdale with his curiosity
unsatisfied. As it happened, he was shortly afterwards present at a
gathering of his neighbors at Macdonald's farm and came across Ferris
there.

"I heard fragments of a curious story at the settlement," he said.
"There was trouble of some kind in which a professional gambler figured
last Saturday night, and though nobody seemed to want to talk about it,
I surmised that somebody from Silverdale was concerned in it."

He had perhaps spoken a trifle more loudly than he had intended, and
there were a good many of the Silverdale farmers with a few of their
wives and daughters whose attention was not wholly confined to the
efforts of Mrs. Macdonald at the piano in the long room just then. In
any case a voice broke through the silence that followed the final
chords.

"Ferris could tell us if he liked. He was there that night."

Ferris, who had cause for doing so, looked uncomfortable, and
endeavored to sign to the first speaker that it was not desirable to
pursue the topic.

"I have been in tolerably often of late. Had things to attend to," he
said.

The other man was, however, possessed by a mischievous spirit or did
not understand him. "You may just as well tell us now as later,
because you never kept a secret in your life," he said.

In the meantime, several of the others had gathered about them, and
Mrs. Macdonald, who had joined the group, smiled as she said, "There is
evidently something interesting going on. Mayn't I know, Gordon?"

"Of course," said the man who had visited the settlement. "You shall
know as much as I do, though that is little, and if it excites your
curiosity, you can ask Ferris for the rest. He is only anxious to
enhance the value of his story by being mysterious. Well, there was a
more or less dramatic happening, of the kind our friends in the old
country unwarrantably fancy is typical of the West, in the saloon of
the settlement not long ago. Cards, pistols, a professional gambler,
and the unmasking of foul play, don't you know. Somebody from
Silverdale played the leading role."

"How interesting!" said a young English girl. "Now, I used to fancy
something of that kind happened here every day before I came out to the
prairie. Please tell us, Mr. Ferris! One would like to find there is
just a trace of reality in our