un to study pistolship, but
acquired thus in middle life it could never be with him that spontaneous
art which it was with Price's Left Wing. Not that the weapons now lying
loose about the State-House were brought for use there. Everybody always
went armed in Boise, as the gravestones impliedly testified. Still, the
thought of the bad quarter of an hour which it might come to at noon did
cross Ballard's mind, raising the image of a column in the morrow's
paper: "An unfortunate occurrence has ended relations between esteemed
gentlemen hitherto the warmest personal friends.... They will be laid
to rest at 3 p.m.... As a last token of respect for our lamented
Governor, the troops from Boise Barracks...." The Governor trusted that
if his friends at the post were to do him any service it would not be a
funeral one.

The new pitcher of toddy came from the Overland, the jack-pots
continued, were nearing a finish, and Ballard began to wonder if
anything had befallen a part of his note to the bar-tender, an enclosure
addressed to another person.

"Ha, suh!" said Wingo to Hewley. "My pot again, I declah." The chips had
been crossing the table his way, and he was now loser but six hundred
dollars.

"Ye ain't goin' to whip Mizzooruh all night an' all day, ez a rule,"
observed Pete Cawthon, Councillor from Lost Leg.

"'Tis a long road that has no turnin', Gove'nuh," said F. Jackson Gilet,
more urbanely. He had been in public life in Missouri, and was now
President of the Council in Idaho. He, too, had arrived on a mule, but
could at will summon a rhetoric dating from Cicero, and preserved by
many luxuriant orators until after the middle of the present century.

"True," said the Governor, politely. "But here sits the long-suffering
bank, whichever way the road turns. I'm sleepy."

"You sacrifice yo'self in the good cause," replied Gilet, pointing to
the poker game. "Oneasy lies the head that wahs an office, suh." And
Gilet bowed over his compliment.

The Governor thought so indeed. He looked at the Treasurer's strong-box,
where lay the appropriation lately made by Congress to pay the Idaho
Legislature for its services; and he looked at the Treasurer, in whose
pocket lay the key of the strong-box. He was accountable to the Treasury
at Washington for all money disbursed for Territorial expenses.

"Eleven twenty," said Wingo, "and only two hands mo' to play."

The Governor slid out his own watch.

"I'll scahsely recoup," sai