"What?" cried the colonel.
"An' told 'em he knew their man, an' would help find him," continued Weasel. "They offered him the thousand dollars—"
"Oh, Lord! oh, Lord!" groaned the colonel; "who's a feller to trust in this world! The idee of Jim goin' back on a pardner fur a thousand! I wouldn't hev b'lieved he'd a-done it fur a million!"
"An' he told 'em he'd cram it down their throats if they mentioned it again."
"Bully! Hooray fur Jim!" shouted the colonel. "What'll yer take, fellers? Fill high! Here's to Jim! the feller that b'lieves his friend's innercent!"
The colonel looked thoughtfully into his glass, and remarked, as if to his own reflection therein, "Ain't many such men here nur nowhars else!" after which he drank the toast himself.
"But that don't explain what Tarpaulin went fur," said the colonel, suddenly.
"Yes, it does," said the exasperating Weasel, shutting his thin lips so tightly that it was hard to see where his mouth was.
"What?" cried the colonel. "'Twould take a four-horse corkscrew to get anything out o' you, you dried-up little scoundrel!"
"Why!" replied Weasel, greatly pleased by the colonel's compliment, "after what you said about hair and beard hidin' a man, one of them fellers cut a card an' held it over the picture, so as to hide hair an' chin. The forehead an' face an' nose an' ears wuz Tarpaulin's, an' nobody else's."