to work hard ever since;
and I have sworn to kill him the first time I met him." "I do not
blame you for feeling as you do, for you could not afford to lose
the money; but I did not care, as the old gent had plenty more that
I could get whenever I asked for it; and as he sometimes lost pretty
heavy himself, he would say to me, 'Son, if you bet you will win
or lose; but if you lose, take it cool; for if you could not afford
to lose, you had no business to bet.'" "You're right! I did not
have any business to bet; but I thought I had a sure thing of
winning. I would have killed that fellow the next morning; but
when I began looking for him, I found he had got off the boat, and
I have never seen him since." I laughed and said, "If you had won
the money, you would not have felt like shooting the fellow, would
you?" "Oh, no."

I found out the fellow had about $60; but he was just as much a
sucker as he was when he lost the $5,000, and I made up my mind to
win his money, and then tell him that I was the same man that beat
him before. I excused myself, and told my partner all about the
fellow, and that I wanted to win his money.

After supper I opened up monte, and caught a good many suckers.
My old producer was watching the game and me too. We had about
finished up, when my partner said to my old friend, "I would like
to make a bet, but I am unlucky; will you bet this $50 for me?"
He took the $50, put it up, and won. Then he put up $50 for himself,
and lost. My partner wanted to know how he had made such a mistake,
when he swelled up like a porpoise, and said: "I believe that is
the same fellow that beat me out of my money before." He walked
away, and my partner followed him. They were standing at the bar
when I came up, and I invited all hands to join me in a drink.
Everybody accepted the invitation, except my Arkansas killer. I
made up my mind that we would have a fight, so I thought I would
not put it off any longer. I turned to him and said, "Come and
take a cigar with me, for I see you are not drinking." He replied,
"I pick my company." Then I said, "You are in better company just
now than you ever were in your life, except the time, some years
ago, when you were in my company and lost $5,000." He said, "You
are a d----d rascal." I then called him a liar and a coward. He
attempted to draw, when my partner caught his arm and gave him one
in the face, which was not a very heavy one, for he did not app