he is certainly one awful good game loser!"

"Game loser nothing!" I says. "He's just a game winner. Any time you see
that old boy acting game he's won. And he's won now, no matter how much
the known facts look against it. I don't know how, but he's won."

They all begin to tell me I must be mistaken, because look at the price
we got for stuff we hadn't been able to sell at any price before. I says
I am looking at that, but I'm also obliged to look at Safety after he's
paid that price, and the laws of Nature certainly ain't been suspended
all at once. I offer to bet 'em what they've made on the deal that Safety
has run true to form. "Mark my words," I says, "this is one sad day for
the Arrowhead! I don't know how or why, but we'll soon find out; and if
you don't believe me, now's the time to double your money."

But they hung off on that. They got too much respect for my judgment. And
they admitted that Safety's way of standing the gaff had been downright
uncanny. So there was nothing to do but pay over their share of this
tainted money and wait for the blow, eight hundred and seventy-five
dollars being the amount I split with 'em for their masterly headwork
in the depredation.

That very day in the mail comes a letter that has been delayed because
this here Government of ours pinches a penny even worse than old Timmins
does. Yes, sir; this letter had been mailed at Seattle with a two-cent
stamp the day after the Government had boosted the price to three cents.
And what does the Government do? Does it say: "Oh, send it along! Why
pinch pennies?" Not at all. It takes a printed card and a printed
envelope and the time of a clerk and an R.F.D. mail carrier to send me
word that I must forward one cent if I want this letter--spends at least
two cents to get one cent. Well, it takes two days for that notice to
reach me; and of course I let it lie round a couple of days, thinking
it's probably an advertisement; and then two days for my one-cent stamp
to go back to this parsimonious postmaster; and two days for the letter
to get here; making about eight days, during which things had happened
that I should of known about. Yes, sir; it's a great Government that will
worry over one cent and then meet one of these smooth profiteers and
loosen up on a million dollars like a cowhand with three months' pay
hitting a wet town. Of course it was all over when I read this letter.

* * * * *

I rolled