ion in a mad chase of a thing that
no longer exists? The paralytic is no more; thy Faith Hath Made Him
Whole." Aggy sank his voice to a beautiful whisper.

"Well, you got stuck yourself," pipes up old Grandpa Hope. "He, he,
he, he shelled you too!"

"I admit it," says Ag, "and yet it is not quite what it seems. I
borrowed Slit-Eyed Jenkins's two gilded nickels to get in this game. I
further admit that the Government never should have left the word
'cents' off these nickels, to tempt poor but not bigoted men; further,
I'll say that if Jenkins had brightened them up he might have passed
them for $3.89. But Jenkins puts a thief within his stomach that
steals away his business ability, so that when I asked for them nickels
he merely replied: 'Take the damned Yankee skin-tricks away, with my
thanks.'

"I have noted in my travels that the person to pass immoral money on us
is the agent whose mind is absorbed in selling you a diamond ring, that
nothing but his desire to get rid of would drive him to sell; so in
this case I dropped them nickels into the grateful and quiverin' hand
of that paralytic, drew my man and--here we are," says Ag.

It was the first time I ever saw a gang of full-grown men blush at the
same time.

Nobody had nothin' to say except Ag, who threw the lapel of his coat
back and addressed the meeting.

"Gentlemen," says he, "as I have mentioned before, our paralysed friend
has fled, departed, skinned out, screwed his nut far, far from here.
Don't blaspheme in the very face of the Almighty by trying to be more
ridiculous than you already are. If you arrive warm and distracted,
the few remaining inhabitants of Lost Dog will hold the dead moral on
you the rest of your days. Cool off and wipe the word 'map' from your
minds; turn from the villainies of man to the stark forces of nature;
see where Squaw Creek has forced her remorseless and semi-fluid way
through the mighty rampart of these Gumbo hills."

"I wish you would hush," said a puncher. "Leggo, Ag!"

"Here's where you get the worth of your money," says Ag. "You wouldn't
play poker with _me_, would you? Of course not. I might get your
money. In fact, I think I should, myself. But you would turn over ten
fine large bones to a paralytic who made pencil sketches of a scene in
the Alps and put the sign of the price on 'em--one sawbuck, or ten
plunks? There is the sawbuck," says Aggy, tappin' his map. "But where
are the plunks? Go to!