"Well, do you know anything about a long, lean, one-eyed man that runs a dice-game over there in that tent?" "I've heard of him," said the doctor. "Well, he skinned me out of two hundred dollars a little while ago, blast his gizzard!" "You're not the first one, and it's not likely that you'll be the last," the doctor assured him, drawing a little nearer and studying the victim from beneath his hanging hat-brim. "No; maybe not," snapped the other. "But I'll even up with him before I go away from here." "Would you be willing to risk ten dollars more on a chance to get it back?" asked the doctor. "Show me the man who can tell me how to do it, and watch me," bristled the victim. "I know that man, and I know his scheme," said the doctor, "and I've got one that will beat it." The whiskered man put his hand into the pocket where the remainder of his roll was stored, and looked at the battered stranger with a disfavoring scowl. "How do I know you ain't another crook?" he asked. "You don't know, and maybe I am a crook in a small way. I'm in hard luck right now." "What's your scheme?" "That's my capital," the doctor told him. "If I had a few dollars I'd put it through without splitting with anybody; but I haven't a cent. I've been kicking this straw and trash around here for the last hour in the hope of turning up a dime. I'll say this to you: I'll undertake to recover your two hundred dollars for you if you'll put up ten. If I get it back, then you are to give me twenty-five of it, and if I win more I'm to keep all above the two hundred. And you can hold on to your ten dollars till we stand up to the table, and then you can hold to my coat. I can't get away with it, but I don't guarantee, you understand, that I'll win." The little man was thoughtful a spell. When he looked up there was the glitter of hope in his sharp scrutiny. "It'd take a crook to beat that old man's game," said he, "and maybe you can do it. As long as I can hold on to the money I don't see how I stand to lose it, and I've got a notion to go you." "Suit yourself," said the doctor, turning again to his exploration of the straw. "Ain't much in that," commented the gambler's victim, watching him with puzzled face. No comment from the searching man. "You're a funny feller, anyhow, and I got a notion to take you up. Crook, heh?" "Oh, a sort of a tin-horn," answered the doctor apparently indifferent about the whole matter. Slavens was working farther away now, so the man left his place on the box to draw within the range of confidential conversation. "If I was to put up the ten, would you be willing to go over there now and put that scheme of yours in motion?" he asked. "No; not now. There would be some preliminaries. In the first place, that old man knows me, although he might not spot me at the first look in this rig. I'd have to get a pair of goggles to hide my eyes. And then there would be supper."