Page:Life Amongst the Modocs.djvu/57

 ular hell

for the rest of us, should travel all the way from Yreka to Cottonwood to get a game, and then get cleaned out cleaner than a shot-gun ! Too jolly for anything ! And are you really dead-broke ? "

" Skinned clean down to the bed-rock. Haven t got the colour," said the Prince, laconically, as he again tapped the dust with his boot.

" Well now, do tell a fellow how it happened. I shall hang up at Cottonwood to-night, and if I don t make the sports ante, my name ain t Boston. What did you go through on?"

"Four aces!"

" Four devils ! and what did the other fellow have ?"

" A pair ! "

u A pair of what? You let him take your money on a pair when you had four aces ? Now come ! On the square how on earth did you get sinched, any how? and did you really have four aces?"

"Yes."

" And the other fellow?"

" A pair."

"Of what ?"

u Six-shooters ! " calmly answered the laconic Prince, still tapping at the dust and looking sidewise like, to the right.

u Now look here," said Boston earnestly, as he dismounted, stood on one foot and leaned against his mule, with the broad hat pressed back and his right arm over the animal s neck, u do for the love of Moses tell me all about how this happened ! "