"Well, come right in," says the dealer. "They're only a dollar a stack."
"Well," says Ag, "I'll just invest in $10 worth to pass away the time—you take dust, don't you?"
"I used to say I wouldn't take anybody's dust," says the dealer, being funny with such a good customer, "but since I've struck this country I've found I've gotter."
Ag pulls out the old buckskin sack, that would hold enough to support quite a family through the winter. It was stuffed with gravel stones.
"Oh, here!" says he, whilst he was fumbling with the strings. "No use to open that—I've got another package—what you might call small change." Then he digs up Uncle Peters' cartridge shell.
I want to tell you I had my own troubles keeping my face together while Ag was doing his work. You never see any such good-natured, old-fashioned patriarch as he was. When they beat him out of a hand he'd laugh fit to kill himself.
"You're welcome, boys!" he'd say. "There's plenty more of it."
At the same time, you wouldn't live high on all you could make out of Aggy on a stud-poker game. He was playing 'em right down to cases, yet the way he talked, he seemed like the most liberal cuss that ever threw good money away. Of course, they had to ask him about his pardner and the rest of it whilst the cards were being shuffled, and a few inquiring remarks drew the whole sad story out of Ag.
"It's mighty tough," says he; "Hy's a fine-looking feller, when he's dressed decent; but the sight of new clothes on himself makes him furious; he foams and rips till he's tore them to gun-wadding."
"Where did you say this here claim of yours was?" asks the dealer.