n't
know it."

"Well," said Weasel, moving his glass in graceful circles, to be sure
that all the sugar dissolved, "I dunno. It's a respectable business, an'
I wanted to have a good look at 'em."

"What's that got to do with Jim and Tarpaulin?" demanded the colonel,
fiercely.

"Wait, and I'll tell you," replied Weasel, provokingly, taking a
leisurely sip at his glass. "Jim come down to see 'em--"

"What?" cried the colonel.

"An' told 'em he knew their man, an' would help find him," continued
Weasel. "They offered him the thousand dollars--"

"Oh, Lord! oh, Lord!" groaned the colonel; "who's a feller to trust in
this world! The idee of Jim goin' back on a pardner fur a thousand! I
wouldn't hev b'lieved he'd a-done it fur a million!"

"An' he told 'em he'd cram it down their throats if they mentioned it
again."

"Bully! Hooray fur Jim!" shouted the colonel. "What'll yer take,
fellers? Fill high! Here's to Jim! the feller that b'lieves his friend's
innercent!"

The colonel looked thoughtfully into his glass, and remarked, as if to
his own reflection therein, "Ain't many such men here nur nowhars else!"
after which he drank the toast himself.

"But that don't explain what Tarpaulin went fur," said the colonel,
suddenly.

"Yes, it does," said the exasperating Weasel, shutting his thin lips so
tightly that it was hard to see where his mouth was.

"What?" cried the colonel. "'Twould take a four-horse corkscrew to get
anything out o' you, you dried-up little scoundrel!"

"Why!" replied Weasel, greatly pleased by the colonel's compliment,
"after what you said about hair and beard hidin' a man, one of them
fellers cut a card an' held it over the picture, so as to hide hair an'
chin. The forehead an' face an' nose an' ears wuz Tarpaulin's, an'
nobody else's."

"Lightning's blazes!" roared the colonel, "Ha, ha, ha! why, Tarpaulin
hisself came into my shanty, an' looked at the pictur', an' talked to
them 'bout it! Trot out yer glassware, barkeeper--_got_ to drink to a
feller that's ez cool ez all that!"

The boys drank with the colonel, but they were too severely astonished
to enjoy the liquor particularly. In fact, old Bermuda, who had never
taken anything but plain rye, drank three fingers of claret that day,
and did not know of it until told.

The colonel's mind was unusually excited. It seemed to him there were a
number of probabilities upon which to hang bets. He walked outside, that
his meditation might