f man who has tramped
everywhere, and done everything."

"You're about right there, for a wonder! I've druv cattle in Mexico;
I've been out with a gang that went to find an overland road to the
North Pole; I've worked through a season or two in catching wild horses
on the Pampas; and another season or two in digging gold in California.
I went away from England, a tidy lad aboard ship; and here I am back
again now, an old vagabond as hasn't a friend to own him. If you want
to know exactly who I am, and what I've been up to all my life, that's
about as much as I can tell you."

"You don't say so! Wait a minute, though; there's one thing--you're not
troubled with the hiccups, are you, after eating supper? (I've been a
martyr to hiccups ever since I was a child.) But, I say, there's one
thing you haven't told me yet; you haven't told me what your other name
is besides Mat. Mine's Thorpe."

"I haven't heard the sound of the other name you're asking after for a
matter of better than twenty year: and I don't care if I never hear it
again." His voice sank huskily, and he turned his head a little away
from Zack, as he said those words. "They nicknamed me 'Marksman,' when I
used to go out with the exploring gangs, because I was the best shot of
all of them. You call me Marksman, too, if you don't like Mat. Mister
Mathew Marksman, if you please: everybody seems to be a 'Mister' here.
You're one, of course. I don't mean to call you 'Mister' for all that. I
shall stick to Zack; it's short, and there's no bother about it."

"All right, old fellow! and I'll stick to Mat, which is shorter still by
a whole letter. But, I say, you haven't told the story yet about how you
lost your scalp."

"There's no story in it, Do you know what it is to have a man dodging
after you through these odds and ends of streets here? I dare say you
do. Well, I had three skulking thieves of Indians dodging after me, over
better than four hundred miles of lonesome country, where I might have
bawled for help for a whole week on end, and never made anybody hear
me. They wanted my scalp, and they wanted my rifle, and they got both at
last, at the end of their man-hunt, because I couldn't get any sleep."

"Not get any sleep. Why not?"

"Because they was three, and I was only one, to be sure! One of them
kep' watch while the other two slept. I hadn't nobody to keep watch for
me; and my life depended on my eyes being open night and day. I took a
dog's snooze