y friends. My pardner is Huxly--a
tip-top feller, as you'll diskiver fur yerself. Davis' pardner is
Randolph--Gentleman Bill, we call him fur short, he's so nice and
perlite. He's from yer State, too, I reckon."

"Randolphs of Booneville," said Gentleman Bill; rising and extending his
hand.

Matheny, who was a mild-looking man of about fifty, with a hesitating
manner and rather care-worn countenance, half concealed under a
wide-brimmed, dusty black hat, instead of meeting half-way the extended
hand of his friend's friend, thrust his own into his pockets and gazed
fixedly at young Randolph. "Be ye Boone Randolph, or be ye his sperrit?"
he asked, hoarsely.

"Neither, quite," said the young man, smiling, yet a little flushed. "I
am son of Boone Randolph of Booneville, if you know who he was."

Matheny turned and hurried out of the crowd, followed by Kentuck, who
wanted to have explained this singular conduct of Bob's towards his
friends. As there was no witness of their conversation, its meaning can
only be guessed at by another which took place two hours later, after
Matheny had turned in at the Traveler's Rest. It was late, even for him,
when Kentuck started for his lodgings at the other end of the long,
densely crowded street--crowded not only with buildings of wood and
canvas, but choked up with monstrous freight wagons, and their numerous
horse and mule-teams, for which there was not stable-room enough in all
Wilson's Bar. Stumbling along the uneven sidewalk, often touching with
his feet some unhoused vagabond, Kentuck was about to mount the stairs
which led to his bedroom, when some one touched him on the shoulder, and
the voice of Gentleman Bill addressed him:

"I beg your pardon, Kentuck; but you've been with Matheny, haven't you?
I want to know why he wouldn't shake hands. He told you, of course?"

"Waal, I'm a friend of Bob's, ye know, Bill; an' he is mighty rough on
you, sure. Better not say nothin' about it."

"That wouldn't suit me, Kentuck. I want to understand something about
the matter which concerns me so evidently. Come, out with it, and I'll
leave you to go to bed."

"Waal, you heerd Tom Davis' blab this evenin'; an' you know that Bob's
got the idee into his intelleck that the cuss of a sart'in man as he
onct wronged is a-stickin' to him yit, an' never will let loose till he
passes in his checks?"

"Who was the man?"

"Boone Randolph, of Booneville."

"My father?"

"Yaas, yer pap. He's do