n freight schedules,
an' telegraphed Shanghai when to leave with the rest of the stable.
They got into Port Costa this mornin'. It wa'n't no trick at all to
slip Pharaoh into that through car--not when you know the right
people--an' when we unloaded here this noon the word sort of got
scattered round that the Curry hosses had been five days on the road.
Now, no man with the sense that God gives a goose could figger a
critter to walk out of a box car, where he'd been bumped an' jolted
an' shook up for five days, an' run four miles with any kind of
hosses. It just ain't in the book, son.

"They got the notion I was crazy, an' I reckon they knew everything
about us but the one thing that counted most, which was that Pharaoh
hadn't been in that car an hour all told. You know, when you go down
into Egypt after corn, you got to do as the Egyptians do: have an ace
in the hole all the time. Solomon says that a fool uttereth all his
mind, but a wise man keepeth it till afterward. That's why I'm
gassin' so much now, I reckon."

"Old-timer," chuckled the Kid, "you're a wonder, and I'm proud to
have a kid named for you! Just one question more, and I'm through.
You won the stake, and that amounts to quite a mess of money, but did
you bet enough to pay the freight on the string?"

"Well, now, son," said the old man; "I been so glad to see you that I
kind of forgot that part of it." He fumbled in the tail pockets of
his rusty black frock coat and brought forth great handfuls of
tickets. "I didn't take less'n 15 to 1," said he, "an' I bet 'em till
my feet ached, just walkin' from one book to another. I haven't tried
to figger it up, but I reckon I took more corn away from these
Egyptians than the law allows a single man to have. If it's all the
same to you, Frank, an' the baby ain't got no objections, I'd like to
use some of this to start a savings account for my namesake. Curry
ain't no name for a baby girl, an' you ought to let me square it with
her somehow. Mebbe when she gits of age, an' wants to marry some
harum-scarum boy, she won't think so bad of her gran'daddy."

THE MODERN JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON

It was an unpleasantly warm morning, and the thick, black shade of an
umbrella tree made queer neighbours--as queer neighbours as the
Jungle Circuit could produce. Old Man Curry found the shade first and
felt that he was entitled to it by right of discovery, consequently
he did not move when Henry M. Pitkin signified an in