The college men said nothing, but, as the thin procession topped the hill two miles away, the fat man led by twenty yards.

II
THE NUMISMATIST
POSSESSION IS NINE POINTS OF THE LAW, SELF-POSSESSION THE TENTH

Election day, ’96, was big medicine in Terrapin. Miners all down from the upper camps, shoutin’ Free Silver, and morose about John Sherman. All the cow-boys from the immediate vicinity were in. The immediate vicinity of any point in the North-west is a good big scope of country—say as far as two men can ride fast in as many days as it takes to get there.

In Brown’s Bank there was a sound of deviltry by night. Them back from the bar couldn’t get back. A damsel with a dulcimer was dispensin’ sweet strains, and a minority of the convention thought they was singing to keep her from feeling conspicuous, each delegate voting for a different tune. The toot ongsom was calculated to make an escaped lunatic homesick.

In the middle of this dispensation I comes in, late. I endeavored to attract the attention of the bar creature by shouting and sign talk, for I wanted to do my duty. I know I yelled, for I could feel my jaw waggle, and my breath give out—but I couldn’t hear nothin’. No one would take my money. Some one or two drinks were handed to me, however, a handful of cigars and six dollars change. Them Free Silver fellows shore believed what they said.

So I looked around in search of distraction. Five deep they stood around the faro and roulette layouts. Dealers looked like a Turkish bath from raking in money and shovin’ over chips. One fellow at the faro table had more’n six bushel of checks and was betting with a shovel.

I made for the poker-rooms. Both locked. I hammers. “Shove your money under the door,” yells some one inside, “and go away.”

Here was a fine how-de-do. Six months’ wages in my pocket and no action in sight. I went out in front to hear myself think. On the porch sat a man, unostentatious, hugging his knee, observing of the moon.

I shoved a cigar at him. He nods, sticks it in his face, and hands me up matches over his shoulder. I likes his looks.