d.
I always wanted a piece of paper money any way--for a keepsake. You
wait!"

He went into the cabin and returned with a tarnished gold piece and a box
of forty-five cartridges.

"Here, stakeholder!" he said to Johnson.

Then, to Bill: "Now, then, old Californy--you been all swelled-up and
stumping me for quite some time. Show us what you got!"

It was an uncanny exhibition of skill that followed. These men knew
how to handle a sixshooter. They began with tin cans at ten yards,
thirty, fifty--and hit them. They shot at rolling cans, and hit them;
at high-thrown cans, and hit them; at cards nailed to hitching-posts;
then at the pips of cards. Neither man could boast of any advantage. The
few and hairbreadth misses of the card pips, the few blanks at the longer
ranges, fairly offset each other. The California man took a slightly
crouching attitude, his knees a little bent; held his gun at his knee;
raising an extended and rigid arm to fire. The Texan stood erect, almost
on tiptoe, bareheaded; he swung his gun ear-high above his shoulder,
looking at his mark alone, and fired as the gun flashed down. The little
California man made the cleaner score at the very long shots and in
clipping the pips of the playing cards; the Texan had a shade the better
at the flying targets, his bullets ranging full-center where the other
barely grazed the cans.

"I don't see but what I'll have to keep this money. You've shot away all
the cartridges in your belts and most of the box, and it hasn't got you
anywheres," observed Pete Johnson pensively. "Better let your guns cool
off. You boys can't beat each other shooting. You do right well, too,
both of you. If you'd only started at it when you was young, I reckon
you'd both have been what you might call plumb good shots now."

He shook his head sadly and suppressed a sigh.

"Wait!" advised the Texan, and turned to confront his partner. "You make
out quite tol'lable with a gun, Billiam," he conceded. "I got to hand it
to you. I judged you was just runnin' a windy. But have you now showed
all your little box of tricks?"

"Well, I haven't missed anything--not to speak of--no more than you did,"
evaded Bill, plainly apprehensive. "What more do you want?"

Jim chuckled.

"Pausin' lightly to observe that it ought to be easy enough to best you,
if we was on horseback--just because you peek at your sights when you
shoot--I shall now show you something."

A chuck box was propped against