One night Baboon, holding tight to a tow-string, shuffled up to the stranger in the Saloon, and timidly plucking his sleeve, said:
"Going away, I hear?"
"Yes."
"To the States?"
"Yes."
"To Missouri?"
"May be."
"Well, then, look here: come with me!"—and with an old dog bumping his head against his heels, he led the way out the door down the gulch to the cabin. He pulled the latch-string, entered, and finally struck a light. Sticking the candle in a whisky-bottle that stood on a greasy table in the center of the earthen floor, he picked up the tow-string, and pointing to the bunk in the corner, they sat down together, and the old dog rested his nose between the old man's legs.
After looking about the cabin in nervous silence for a time, Baboon arose with a look of resolution, handed the man his string, stepped to a niche in the wall, and taking an old crevicing-knife, struck it in stoutly above the latch.
"This means something," said the man to himself; "here will be a revelation," and a vision of the Gopher's gold-bags crossed his mind with tempting vividness. After a while the old man came back, took up the whisky-bottle, removed the candle from its neck, and holding it up between his face and the light, which he held in the other hand, seemed to decide some weighty proposition by the run of the beads in the bottle, and then turned and offered it in silence.