Unfamiliar with telegraphy, Mr. Stenner naturally supposed that a message subject to these hard conditions must be one of not only grave importance, but questionable character.  So he determined to decipher it at that time and place.  In the course of the day he succeeded in so doing.  It ran as follows, omitting the date and the names of persons and places, which were, of course, quite illegible: 

“Buy Sally Meeker!”

Had the full force of this remarkable adjuration burst upon Mr. Stenner all at once it might have carried him away, which would not have been so bad a thing for San Francisco; but as the meaning had to percolate slowly through a dense dyke of ignorance, it produced no other immediate effect than the exclamation, “Well, I’ll be bust!”

In the mouths of some persons this form of expression means a great deal.  On the Stenner tongue it signified the hopeless nature of the Stenner mental confusion.

It must be confessed—­by persons outside a certain limited and sordid circle—­that the message lacks amplification and elaboration; in its terse, bald diction there is a ghastly suggestion of traffic in human flesh, for which in California there is no market since the abolition of slavery and the importation of thoroughbred beeves.  If woman suffrage had been established all would have been clear; Mr. Stenner would at once have understood the kind of purchase advised; for in political transactions he had very often changed hands himself.  But it was all a muddle, and resolving to dismiss the matter from his thoughts, he went to bed thinking of nothing else; for many hours his excited imagination would do nothing but purchase slightly damaged Sally Meekers by the bale, and retail them to itself at an enormous profit.

Next day, it flashed upon his memory who Sally Meeker was—­a racing mare!  At this entirely obvious solution of the problem he was overcome with amazement at his own sagacity.  Rushing into the street he purchased, not Sally Meeker, but a sporting paper—­and in it found the notice of a race which was to come off the following week; and, sure enough, there it was: 

“Budd Doble enters g.g.  Clipper; Bob Scotty enters b.g.  Lightnin’; Staley Tupper enters s.s.  Upandust; Sim Salper enters b.m.  Sally Meeker.”

It was clear now; the sender of the dispatch was “in the know.”  Sally Meeker was to win, and her owner, who did not know it, had offered her for sale.  At that supreme moment Mr. Stenner would willingly have been a rich man!  In fact he resolved to be.  He at once betook him to Vallejo, where he had lived until invited away by some influential citizens of the place.  There he immediately sought out an industrious friend who had an amiable weakness for draw poker, and in whom Mr. Stenner regularly encouraged that passion by going up against him every payday and despoiling him of his hard earnings.  He did so this time, to the sum of one hundred dollars.