o end of cases where men have not known where they
belonged for half a lifetime, and then got it all back in a flash.
Nobody would doubt that you was in that fix. I'll help you work it. I'm
your friend, and I want to see you get what is due you. That man's
robbing you, choking the life-blood out of you. You've simply got to go
back and claim your rights."

"I couldn't do it, Hank." The barkeeper sank back into his chair, and,
with his elbows on the table, he ran his blunt fingers through the
fringe of hair around his glistening pate. "I'm in a hole. I'm clean
done for. I wouldn't be good at such a racket as that. I wouldn't know
how to fix it. I'd forget my tale; I ain't got much memory. Hush, I saw
that gambler turn the corner. He's headed here."

"Dick, you'd better take my advice and sell out," Bradley advised.
"You'll be a damn fool if you don't. It's the chance of a lifetime."

"Sh!" Wrinkle hissed, warningly, as a shadow fell athwart the floor and
a tall, middle-aged man, with dyed mustache and whiskers, sauntered in
at the door. He was jocularly called "the Parson," owing to his
dignified and clerical appearance. His trousers were neatly folded into
the tops of his very high boots, and his shirt-bosom was broad and none
too clean, and his flowered silk waistcoat was cut so low that two
buttons sufficed to keep it in place. He wore a flowing, black necktie,
glistening foil-back studs, and rings of the same quality.

"I'm up early," he laughed, nodding to Bradley as a stranger might. "My
wife pulled me out o' bed. She has got Shanks to agree to sell me his
grocery, part cash and part on tick, and she wants me to watch and see
what sort o' early-morning trade he's got. She knows I don't know as
much about that line as this, but she thinks I kin learn, and maybe keep
better company. I reckon it will be a deal betwixt now and ten
o'clock--that is, unless you make up your mind to sell out."

Dick Wrinkle was looking into the speaking eyes of his old friend across
the table. He knew well enough that the gambler's remark was merely a
poker bluff, and yet it stirred certain natural fears within him.

"You can't root me out of a good thing with a little wad like that,
Parson," he said, rising and going behind the counter and briskly wiping
off its surface more from habit than necessity. "I've just met an old
friend of mine from back in God's Country, and we was just talking over
old times. What'll you have?"

"The o