ountenance, were neither interesting nor profitable. Probably his
Christmases had never been passed in a way that was calculated to make
them pleasingly conspicuous in the background of his life. Most of his
early recollections were associated with a villainous roadside groggery
in Pike county, Missouri, of which his father was the proprietor. Any
questions relating to this parent and home he had been known to
invariably evade, and whenever conversation tended in that direction he
strenuously discouraged it. Why he did so never very clearly appeared.
Some people who pretended to know used to say that the old gentleman had
been doing a lively trade in horseflesh without going through the
customary formalities of finance, and that some people with whom his
dealings had been unsatisfactory, in consequence of this unbusinesslike
habit of his, had called at his house one evening and invited him to
walk out with them. The invitation was one he would have liked to
decline, but extra inducements in the shape of the cold muzzle of a
revolver pressed against his forehead and a low but determined "Dry up
and come along!" caused him to put on his hat and step out. He was found
next morning hanging from a branch of a neighboring tree with a brief
but expressive obituary written in pencil on a scrap of paper and pinned
on his coat: "Horse-thief! Jerry Moon and Scotty, take notice." Inasmuch
as one of the latter individuals was the chief authority for the story,
and had expedited his departure from Pike county in consequence of the
intimation contained in the lines on the same bit of paper, it may be
safely inferred that there was some foundation for the numerous stories
of a similar nature that were in circulation. So Christmas spent as his
had been had no particular interest for Old Platte, and was pretty much
the same as any other kind of day upon which there would be an equally
good excuse for stopping work and getting venomously drunk. At any rate,
the memories that clung around that Pike county whisky-shop were none of
the pleasantest or most gratifying; and with a grunt of general
dissatisfaction he rekindled his pipe, put a couple of sticks on the
fire and allowed his mind to slide off into a more congenial train of
reflection.

To Thompson, Gentleman Dick's words had come as a sort of revelation. He
knew well enough that Christmas came in December, and also upon what day
of that month it fell, but of late the days had gone by