had started out with
a hundred or so, and that I had considered that sufficient to see me
through. Plainly, it was not sufficient; but it is a fact that I looked
upon it as a joke, and went to sleep grinning idiotically at the thought
of me, Ellis Carleton, heir to almost as many millions as I was years
old, without the price of a breakfast in his pocket. It seemed novel and
interesting, and I rather enjoyed the situation. I wasn't hungry, then!

Osage, Montana, failed to rouse any enthusiasm in me when I saw the place
next day, except that it offered possibilities in the way of eating--at
least, I fancied it did, until I stepped down upon the narrow platform and
looked about me. It was two o'clock in the afternoon, and I had fasted
since dinner the evening before. I was not happy.

I began to see where I might have economized a bit, and so have gone on
eating regularly to the end of the journey. I reflected that stewed
terrapin, for instance, might possibly be considered an extravagance under
the circumstances; and a fellow sentenced to honest toil and exiled to the
wilderness should not, it seemed to me then, cause his table to be
sprinkled, quite so liberally as I had done, with tall glasses--nor need
he tip the porter quite so often or so generously. A dollar looked bigger
to me, just then, than a wheel of the _Yellow Peril_. I began to feel
unkindly toward that porter! he had looked so abominably well-fed and
sleek, and he had tips that I would be glad to feel in my own pocket
again. I stood alone upon the platform and gazed wistfully after the
retreating train; many people have done that before me, if one may believe
those who write novels, and for once in my life I felt a bond of sympathy
between us. It's safe betting that I did more solid thinking on frenzied
finance in the five minutes I stood there watching that train slid off
beyond the sky-line than I'd done in all my life before. I'd heard, of
course, about fellows getting right down to cases, but I'd never
personally experienced the sensation. I'd always had money--or, if
I hadn't, I knew where to go. And dad had caught me when I'd all but
overdrawn my account at the bank. I was always doing that, for dad paid
the bills. That last night with Barney MacTague hadn't been my night to
win, and I'd dropped quite a lot there. And--oh, what's the use? I was
broke, all right enough, and I was hungry enough to eat the proverbial
crust.

It seemed to me it might b