ut in our few remainin' hours--as the papers say when a
feller's goin' to be hung--was with you."

"I thought so," said Captain Bailey, with a wink. "We've been havin'
more or less of an argument, Sol. Remember how Barzilla made fun of
Jonadab Wixon for believin' in dreams? Yes, well that was only make
believe. He believes in 'em himself."

"I don't either," declared Wingate. "And I never said so. What I said
was that sometimes it almost seemed as if there was somethin' IN fortune
tellin' and such."

"There is," chuckled Bailey with another wink at the depot master.
"There's money in it--for the fortune tellers."

"I said--and I say again," protested Barzilla, "that I knew a case at
our hotel of a servant girl named Effie, and she--"

"Oh, Heavens to Betsy! Here he goes again, I steered him in here on
purpose, Sol, so's he'd get off that subject."

"You never neither. You said--"

The depot master held up his hand. "Don't both talk at once," he
commanded. "Set down and be peaceful, can't you. That's right. What
about this Effie, Barzilla?"

"Now look here!" protested Stitt.

"Shut up, Bailey! Who was Effie, Barzilla?"

"She was third assistant roustabout and table girl at the Old Home
House," said Wingate triumphantly. "Got another cigar, Sol? Thanks. Yes,
this Effie had never worked out afore and she was greener'n a mess of
spinach; but she was kind of pretty to look at and--"

"Ah, ha!" crowed Captain Bailey, "here comes the heart confessions. Want
to look out for these old bachelors, Sol. Fire away, Barzilla; let us
know the worst."

"I took a fancy to her, in a way. She got in the habit of tellin' me her
troubles and secrets, me bein' old enough to be her dad--"

"Aw, yes!" this from Stitt, the irrepressible. "That's an old gag. We
know--"

"WILL you shut up?" demanded Captain Sol. "Go on, Barzilla."

"Me bein' old enough to be her dad," with a glare at Captain Bailey,
"and not bein' too proud to talk with hired help. I never did have that
high-toned notion. 'Twa'n't so long since I was a fo'mast hand.

"So Effie told me a lot about herself. Seems she'd been over to the
Cattle Show at Ostable one year, and she was loaded to the gunwale with
some more or less facts that a fortune-tellin' specimen by the name of
the 'Marvelous Oriental Seer' had handed her in exchange for a quarter.

"'Yup,' says she, bobbin' her head so emphatic that the sky-blue ribbon
pennants on her black hair flapped like a l