cie payment."

"Get in a whack at the Greenbackers," said Col. Orndorff.

"I surely approves the suggestion," said Mr. Stewart. "As a Jacksonian
Democrat, I views with alarm the play the Greenbackers make for fusion,
which the same is a brace game."

Mr. Gibson also allowed that fusion should be coppered by Nevada, and
Noisy Smith whispered his assent, and the resolutions were adopted
unanimously.

The disposition of the jackpot was then considered. Col. Orndorff was
willing to divide it, but he allowed that if the bear had not butted
into the game he would have raked it down to a dead moral certainty.

"I don't know about that," said Doughnut Bill. "The intrusion of our
combustible friend was unwarrantable and ungentlemanly, not to say
rude, but as the holder of three aces before the draw I claim an
interest in the pot. Of course I can't show the cards, but that is the
fact. On your honor as the opener of the pot, Colonel, what did you
have?"

"Seven full on eights."

"That's good," whispered Noisy Smith. "I had a four flush."

Long Brown put his hand into his pocket, drew forth five water-soaked
cards, laid them down and said: "Had 'em in my hand when I dove."

Col. Orndorff looked at them and silently shoved the melted jackpot
over to Long Brown. Long Brown's hand was an eight full on sevens.

* * * * *

So long as Old Brin was under the guardianship of his early friends, it
was certain that no serious harm would come to him and that no hunter
would be permitted to boast of having conquered him. But a later breed
of journalistic historians, having no reverence for the traditions of
the craft and no regard for the truth, sprang up, and the slaughter of
the club-footed Grizzly began. His range was extended "from Siskiyou
to San Diego, from the Sierra to the sea," and he was encountered by
mighty hunters in every county in California and killed in most of them.

Old Clubfoot's first fatal misadventure was in Siskiyou, where he was
caught in a trap and shot by two intrepid men, who stuffed his skin and
sent it to San Francisco for exhibition at a fair. He had degenerated
to a mangy, yellow beast of about 500 pounds weight, with a coat like a
wornout doormat, and but for a card labelling him as "Old Reelfoot,"
and exploiting the prowess of his slayers, his old friends never would
have known him.

Clubfoot's first reincarnation took place in Ventura, about 600 miles
from the s