"'Hev to make it a jackpot naow,' said he, when the old stern-wheeler began to wheeze and snort a little preparatory to stopping at the landing.
"He dealt the jackpot hand himself and each man had $100 in the center of the table. It was to be sweetened for $100 each time the deal passed. But it didn't pass. Cato opened the pot for $100 and his Reuben-looking opponent stayed. The betting swayed back and forth until each man had $1000 up, and then the farmer-like looking man called Cato. Cato had three eights. The other man had three tens. The other man stuffed the bills from the center of the table into his overalls, shook Cato quite effusively by the hand, and went ashore.
"'Got enough?' says I to Cato when the old sandbar-bucker was once again under way.
"'Say,' says he to me, 'ye can't never jedge a man by his looks, can ye? That man knows a hull heap more'n you'd think, don't he?'
"'Got enough, Cato?' I repeats, for I wanted to pin him to the question in hand.
"'Well, I shorely am out o' luck, and no mistake,' was as far as he would commit himself.
"The next day a man who looked like members of Congress out my way used to look got aboard. He was dress in a long black broadcloth coat and wore a big black slouch hat, and he carried himself like a man that amounted to a good deal. He was amiable in his manners, though, and he hadn't been aboard more'n half an hour before he happened to fall into talk with Cato. Cato was a little sore about the loss of his $4,000, but this legislator-like looking man was so entertaining and sprung so a lot of good stories over the jug of good stuff which Cato brought out of his stateroom that Cato appeared to forget his troubles for the time.
"'Monotonous work, this steamboat traveling, isn't it?' says the statesmanlike-looking man to Cato after a while. 'I've only four hours traveling to do, and yet I've been dreading it for a week. What do you say to a little game of dime-ante. You play, of course?'
"Cato scratched his chin.
"'Durned if b'lieve I can any more," said he ruefully, and then, like the innocent big dogan that he was, he tells his new friend how he has already lost $4,000 on the trip down, and that he feels like hanging on to his remaining $6,000.