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 look of either Bergen or Puckett, reserving the thought to himself that he would think it over a good while before he would trust his money to the treasureship of the first or the accounting of the second.

"We owe the existence of Pawnee Bend to Bergen and Puckett," Major Simmons explained. "They are the original owners and platters of the townsite; their vision put this beautiful little city of ours on the map."

Bergen was a large bony man with a beard. He was arrayed in judicial-looking garments, his long black coat striking to his knees, the one sporty splash in his dignified appearance being his vest, which seemed to proclaim the rest of his somber garb a pretense and fraud. This vest was of red plush with white dots, a garment fit for a beau of the range. He was a voluble, ingratiating man, past fifty, one would judge, his black-gray beard, nicely trimmed to the contour of his jaw, giving a stern aspect to his face, which was extraordinarily broad between the high, round cheekbones.

Puckett was more self-contained than his partner. He had a fleshy figure, a smooth, impassible face, a foreshortened lump of nose, a little fold of double chin. His round-cornered shoulders, which never had hardened under any burden, were slightly stooped, as if he had spent much time slouching over gambling tables. He was a type of that atmosphere; one could visualize him cutting and shuffling a little stack of chips in the gambler's one-handed trick, his faculties concentrated on the turn of the card, the fall of the marble in the wheel.