mmer. I know, because he showed me the stuff last fall
when I met him in Benton, and he was fixing to winter with this fellow
that just left.

"Dan was kinda queer about some things, and one of 'em was about
money. It never made any difference how much or how little he had, he
always packed it in his clothes; said a bank had busted on him once
and left him broke in the middle uh winter, and he wasn't going to let
it happen again. He never gambled none, nor blowed his money any
farther than a couple uh glasses uh beer once in a while. He was one
uh these saving cusses--but he was honest; I know that for a fact.

"So he had all this money on him, and went down there with this
jasper, that he'd got in with somehow and didn't know much about, and
they wolfed all winter, according to all accounts, and must uh made
quite a stake, the way the bounty runs up, these days. And here comes
this darned Siwash, hiking out uh there fast as he can--and if he
hadn't run slap onto us at this crossing, I'll gamble he'd never uh
showed up at camp at all, but kept right on going. We didn't ask him
no questions, did we? But he goes to all the pains uh telling us his
tale uh woe, about how Dan had robbed him and pulled out down river.

"If that was the case, wouldn't he be apt to hike out after him and
try and get back his stuff? And wouldn't--"

"How much money did this friend uh yours have?" queried Jack Bates
innocently.

"Well, when I seen him in Benton, he had somewhere between six and
seven hundred dollars. He got it all changed into fifty-dollar
bills--"

"Oh, golly!" Jack Bates rolled over in disgust. "Andy's losing his
grip. Why, darn yuh, if you was in a normal, lying condition, you'd
make it ten thousand, at the lowest--and I've seen the time when you'd
uh said fifty thousand; and you'd uh made us swallow the load, too!
Buck up and do a good stunt, Andy, or else keep still. Why, Happy Jack
could tell that big a lie!"

"Aw, gwan!" Happy Jack rose up to avenge the insult. "Yuh needn't
compare me to Andy Green. I ain't a liar, and I can lick the darned
son-of-a-gun that calls me one. I ain't, and yuh can't say I am,
unless yuh lie worse'n Andy."

"Calm down," urged Weary pacifically. "Jack said yuh _could_ lie; he
didn't say--"

"By gracious, you'd think I was necked up with a whole bunch uh George
Washingtons!" growled Andy, half-indignantly. "And what gets me is,
that I tell the truth as often as anybody in the outfit; o