ise,
and then "treat the house." Often he did this several times each night,
and as "treating the house" invariably cost at least thirty dollars and
he was an inveterate gambler, it will be seen that in one way or another
I managed to secure considerable of old Dupper's fortune. His partiality
to the Marseillaise leads me to the belief that he was banished for
participation in one of the French revolutions; but this I cannot state
positively.

On one occasion I remember that I was visiting with Dupper and we made a
trip together somewhere, Dupper leaving his cook in charge. When we
returned nobody noticed us and I happened to look through a window
before entering the house. Hastily I beckoned to Dupper.

The Frenchman's cook was sitting on his bed with a pile of money--the
day's takings--in front of him. He was dividing the pile into two
halves. Taking one bill off the pile he would lay it to one side and
say:

"This is for Dupper."

Then he'd take the next bill, lay it in another spot, and say:

"And this is for me."

We watched him through the window unnoticed until he came to the last
ten-dollar bill. It was odd. The cook deliberated a few moments and
finally put the bill on top of the pile he had reserved for himself.
Then Dupper, whose face had been a study in emotions, could keep still
no longer.

"Hey, there!" he yelled, "play fair--play fair! Divvy up that ten spot!"

What happened afterwards to that cook I don't remember. But Dupper was a
good sport.

VENTURES AND ADVENTURES

_Hush! What brooding stillness is hanging over all?
What's this talk in whispers, and that placard on the wall?
Aha! I see it now! They're going to hang a man!
Judge Lynch is on the ramparts and the Law's an "Also-Ran!"_
--WOON.

Reader, have you ever seen the look in a man's eyes after he has been
condemned by that Court of Last Appeal--his fellow-men? I have, many
times. It is a look without a shadow of hope left, a look of dread at
the ferocity of the mob, a look of fear at what is to come afterwards;
and seldom a hint of defiance lurks in such a man's expression.

I have seen and figured in many lynchings. In the old days they were the
inseparables, the Frontier and Judge Lynch. If a white man killed a
Mexican or Indian nothing was done, except perhaps to hold a farce of a
trial with the killer in the end turned loose; and if a white man ki