ed protest. "That's the girl for
my money," he declared. "She can eat out of my skillet the rest of her
life. Why, I never see such a fine girl. I'm going back there and ask
her to marry me. I guess she won't want to sling hash any more when she
sees the pile of dust I've got."

"You'll take another whiskey and milk now," Kraft persuaded, with
Satan's smile. "I thought you up-country fellows were better sports."

Kraft spent his puny store of coin at the bar and then gave Judkins and
me such an appealing look that we went down to the last dime we had in
toasting our guest.

Then, when our ammunition was gone and the Klondiker, still somewhat
sober, began to babble again of Milly, Kraft whispered into his ear such
a polite, barbed insult relating to people who were miserly with their
funds, that the miner crashed down handful after handful of silver and
notes, calling for all the fluids in the world to drown the imputation.

Thus the work was accomplished. With his own guns we drove him from the
field. And then we had him carted to a distant small hotel and put to
bed with his nuggets and baby seal-skins stuffed around him.

"He will never find Cypher's again," said Kraft. "He will propose to the
first white apron he sees in a dairy restaurant to-morrow. And Milly--I
mean the Natural Adjustment--is saved!"

And back to Cypher's went we three, and, finding customers scarce, we
joined hands and did an Indian dance with Milly in the centre.

This, I say, happened three years ago. And about that time a little luck
descended upon us three, and we were enabled to buy costlier and less
wholesome food than Cypher's. Our paths separated, and I saw Kraft no
more and Judkins seldom.

But, as I said, I saw a painting the other day that was sold for
$5,000. The title was "Boadicea," and the figure seemed to fill all
out-of-doors. But of all the picture's admirers who stood before it, I
believe I was the only one who longed for Boadicea to stalk from her
frame, bringing me corned-beef hash with poached egg.

I hurried away to see Kraft. His satanic eyes were the same, his hair
was worse tangled, but his clothes had been made by a tailor.

"I didn't know," I said to him.

"We've bought a cottage in the Bronx with the money," said he. "Any
evening at 7."

"Then," said I, "when you led us against the lumberman--the--Klondiker
--it wasn't altogether on account of the Unerring Artistic Adjustment of
Nature?"

"Well, not alt