about as quick as those that don't. I always put the
limit on the card that's handiest, and the game don't owe me a
cent; as a matter of fact, some of the tin-horns used to wear a
pained expression when they saw me coming across the room. I've
split 'cm from stem to keelson more than once, and never used a
copper in my life--played 'em wide open, all the time. Now," and
he brought his fist down on the table, "I'm going to play that
young man wide open, and I'll bet you I don't lose by him neither.
He looks as honest as a mastiff pup, for all he dresses kind of
nice. I might just as well try him on the fly, as to go
lunk-heading around and get stuck anyhow, with the unsatisfactory
addition of feeling that I was a fool, as well as confiding."

Most of the argument had been ancient Aryan to Miss Mattie, but the
ring of the voice and the little she understood made the tenor
plain. A sudden moisture gathered in her eyes as she said, "You're
too good and honest and generous a man to distrust anybody: that's
what I think, Will."

"Mattie, I wish you wouldn't talk like that," said he, in an
injured voice. "It ain't hardly respectable."

After which there was a silence for a short time. Then said Miss
Mattie, "Do you think you could content yourself here, Will, after
all the things you've seen?"

Red brightened at the change of topic. "I'll tell you how that is:
if I hadn't any capital, and had to work here as a poor man, I
don't believe I'd take the trouble to try and live--I'd smother;
but having that pleasant little crop of long greens securely
planted in the bank where the wild time doesn't grow, and thusly
being able to cavort around as it sweetly pleases me, why, I like
the country. It's sport to take hold of a place like this, that's
only held together by its suspenders, and try to make a real live
man's town out of it."

Miss Mattie drew a deep breath of relief. "You came like the hero
in a fairy story, Will, and I was afraid you'd go away like one,"
she said.

He reached across the table and patted her hand. "You'd have had
to gone, too," said he. "The family'll stick together."

She thanked him in a soft little voice. "Dear me!" she murmured.
"It does seem that you've been here a year, Will."

"Never was told that I was such slow company before."

"You know perfectly well that that isn't what I mean."

"Well, you'll have to put up with me for a while, whatever I am;
insomuch as I'm to be a ma