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 spots, but I said 'no' to myself, 'not till you're well away from home.'"

I said that perhaps the black spots were enough, and he cheered up. We rode back to Painted Rock together.

"You come to the deepô on the quiet when the next East-bound express rolls threw," said Dick, "and say good-bye to me. I feel some shook up, and partial skeered at the notion of seein' England, but I'm bound to do it."

He was bound to try to do it, at any rate, for he started on the next express, without a soul knowing he was gone but myself. I told the boys that night, and Pillsbury shook his head.

"Fort Worth will slake his ardour and get his money," said the gambler. "At the very farthest Noo Orl'ans will see him and go one better. Brazos Dick will be crawlin' back hyar in about a week, beatin' his way along the T.P."

But for two months not a word was heard of Dick. I began to think that he had perhaps got through the entanglements of "Noo