“Of course,” smiled the doctor. “How much did you lose?”
“Say, I ought to have a nurse!” said the young man 58 abjectly. “If you hadn’t heaved that table into the old devil’s ribs just then he’d ’a’ skinned me right! Oh, about six hundred, I guess; but in ten minutes more he’d ’a’ cleaned me out. Walker’s my name,” he confided; “Joe Walker. I’m from Cheyenne.”
Dr. Slavens introduced himself.
“And I’m from Missouri,” said he.
Joe Walker chuckled a little.
“Yes; the old man’s from there, too,” said he, with the warmth of one relative claiming kinship with another from far-away parts; “from a place called Saint Joe. Did you ever hear of it?”
“I’ve heard of it,” the doctor admitted, smiling to himself over the ingenuous unfolding of the victim whom he had snatched from the sacrifice.
“They don’t only have to show you fellers from Missouri,” pursued Walker; “but you show them! That’s the old man’s way, from the boot-heels up.”
They were walking away from the gambling-tent, taking the middle of the road, as was the custom in Comanche after dark, sinking instep deep in dust at every step.
“What are you doing with all that money in a place like this?” the doctor questioned.