"'Got $3,000 left now, haven't you, Cato?' says I then, for it began to look to me as if word had been passed down the whole length of the Missouri River that Cato Bullman was traveling on one of its steamboats with money. 'Better let me keep that $3,000 for you.'
"'No, I'm durned if I do,' says Cato. 'Might as well lose it all now, devil take it,' and he gnawed on his fingernails, thinking about what kind of a story he'd put up to his partner, I guess, when he got back to Yankton broke.
"Well, Cato did lose it all, or close on to all of it. He foregathered with a man that got aboard at Omaha, and said he was a civil engineer for the Union Pacific Railroad. The civil engineer got $1,800 of Cato's greenbacks, and then got off. Twenty miles below Omaha, at a little handing, a gappy looking hog raiser that Cato had met before climbed over the rail, and Cato thought he saw a chance to recoup his drooping fortunes. The hog raiser relieved Cato of $1,000, and had an important engagement to look at some fancy hogs at the next stop. This left Cato with $200.
"'Convinced that you're a damphool yet, Cato?' says I.
"'Dang'd if I don't begin b'lieve I am,' he owns up.
"'How about those goods you were going to buy in St. Louis?' I asked him.
"'I dunno,' he said, mournful like.
"Well, when we got to Leavenworth, Kan., the wheezy old Sherman tied up for twenty-four hours for repairs to the machinery. Cato was pretty gloomy. We went ashore and put up at the old Planters' House. On the night we struck Leavenworth I walked Cato around to sort o' relieve his mind. We were strolling down Shawnee street when we both saw a pretty much lighted up place into which a lot of well-gotten up men were going. When we came up to the place we heard the rattle of the chips and click of the marble and the choppy talk of the keno men, and then we saw that it was Col. Jennison's famous Bon Ton gambling joint, running wide open and full blast. Cato made for the door. I grabbed him by the sleeve.
"'Come out o' that,' says I. 'You've only got $200, which won't more'n get you back to Yankton. Haven't you been enough of an idiot already?'
"'I got a hunch,' says Cato, releasing himself from me and starting again for the door.