“Of course, it wasn’t such a big spree; nothing gaudy or Swedelike; but them that should know, claimed it was a model of refinement.  Yes, I have got many encomiums on its general proportions and artistic finish.  One hundred dollars an hour for twenty-four hours, all in red licker, confined to and in me and my choicest sympathizers.  I reckon all our booze combined would have made a fair sluice-head.  Anyhow, I woke up considerable farther down the dim vistas of time and about the same distance down the Yukon, in the bottom of my dory, seekin’ new fields at six miles an hour.  The trader had follered my last will and testament scrupulous, even to coverin’ up my legs.

“That’s how I drifted into Rampart City, and Justus Morrow.

“This here town was the same as any new camp; a mile long and eighteen inches wide, consisting of saloons, dance-halls, saloons, trading-posts, saloons, places to get licker, and saloons.  Might not have been so many dancehalls and trading-posts as I’ve mentioned, and a few more saloons.

“I dropped into a joint called The Reception, and who’d I see playing ‘bank’ but ‘Single Out’ Wilmer, the worst gambler on the river.  Mounted police had him on the woodpile in Dawson, then tied a can on him.  At the same table was a nice, tender Philadelphia squab, ’bout fryin’ size, and while I was watching, Wilmer pulls down a bet belonging to it.  That’s an old game.

“‘Pardon me,’ says the broiler; ‘you have my checks.’

“‘What?’ growls ‘Single Out;’ ’I knowed this game before you quit nursin’, Bright Eyes.  I can protect my own bets.’

“‘That’s right,’ chimes the dealer, who I seen was ‘Curly’ Budd, Wilmer’s pardner.

“‘Lord!’ thinks I, ‘there’s a pair to draw to.’

“’Do you really think you had ought to play this?  It’s a man’s game,’ says Wilmer nasty.

“I expected to see the youngster dog it.  Nothin’ of the kind.

“‘That’s my bet!’ he says again, and I noticed something dry in his voice, like the rustle of silk.

“Single Out just looks black and snarls at the dealer.

“‘Turn the cards!’

“‘Oh, very well,’ says the chechako, talking like a little girl.

“Somebody snickered and, thinks I ’there’s sprightly doin’s hereabouts.  I’ll tarry a while and see ’em singe the fowl.  I like the smell of burning pin feathers; it clears my head.’

“Over in the far corner was another animal in knee panties, riggin’ up one of these flash-light, snappy-shot, photograft layouts.  I found afterwards that he done it for a living; didn’t work none, just strayed around as co-respondent for an English newspaper syndicate, taking pictures and writing story things.  I didn’t pay much attention to him hiding under his black cloth, ’cause the faro-table was full of bets, and it’s hard to follow the play.  Well, bye-and-bye Wilmer shifted another stack belonging to the Easterner.