"Wall, I live on a ranch twenty-five odd miles from El Paso."
"What brought you so far away from home?"
"Me and my pap came over with cattle, sir, and they's all over in pens in New Orleans. I reckoned as how we'd lose 'em all coming across the sea, and pap was skeered, so he never went to bed till we got them steers in the pens. I didn't want to go with pap when he started with them thar steers; but pap is the oldest, and I had to mind him."
"But what did you come to Mobile for?:"
"Well, I'll tell you. I got talking to a fellar, and he told me that if I would go over with him on the ship that he would buy all my critters; so I asked pap if I might go, and he said yes; but I'm kinder sorry I went now, for I got lost from that fellar and never laid eyes on him after we got over thar. He told me to pay his fare, and when he got over thar he would give me back the money; but I reckon he went after the money and got lost. But I haint going to say a word to pap, for I got to pranking with a fellow on the ship, and I'll be gol'darned if I didn't lose $1,000; but pap won't find it out, for I had $10,000 what I been saving to buy me a ranch, and I shan't tell pap anything about it."
"How did you come to lose your money, stranger?" I asked.
"Wall, look here; I never seen such a thing. He had some tickets, and he would mix 'em up—sorter jumble 'em together—and then he would bet you that you couldn't lift the one that had the little baby on it. So I just watched it, and I just cut my coat to get the money, for mam she sewed it up before I started. Well, I just laid down my greenbacks, and I didn't lift the boy, and he kept my greenbacks; then he went off and left his tickets lying on the bench, so I'm going to take them home with me, but I won't tell I lost anything."
"Let me see them," I said.
"Will you give 'em back?"
"Oh, certainly." So he pulled them out, and my friend and myself had never seen anything like them before; so I said, "Show us how he did the trick." He showed us the best he could; then I caught up the one with the boy on it, and turned the corner and showed it to my friend, and gave him a quiet hunch under the table as I laid it down, and asked if he would bet on it.