"Who is it?" "How did it happen?" "Was it a fair draw?" "Oh yes, both blazed together!" "All right--fair and square enough!" and the other players resume their gamble, and the talkers their narratives, and more drinks are ordered, and nothing further is thought of the affair. At that time Henniker City was blessed--or the reverse--with a considerable influx on its normal population. Grouped around the outskirts of the town lay the tents of many of the dispossessed miners-- who, like our two friends, had been removed from the Indian lands. All these men were more or less discontented; and suffering in addition from enforced idleness, it follows that monotony and drink rendered them ripe for any mischief which might suggest itself. Moreover, among their ranks was a sprinkling of the very scum of the frontier--horse thieves, "road agents" or highwaymen, professional assassins, and bullies of repute whose presence here was due to the fact that they had rendered every other State too hot to hold them, and where, did they venture to return, they would be lynched without fail, if not shot on sight. Into one of these tents we must invite the reader to peep with us. Look at those two knights of the hang-dog countenance. He who is now speaking would stand not a chance before any intelligent jury, if only on account of his aspect alone. By the dim oil-lamp in the tent we can make out two other forms lying around, but the cloud of tobacco smoke, added to the dimness aforesaid, precludes a more familiar study of their not less forbidding features. "See now, Dan," hang-dog number one was saying. "May I be chopped in splinters by the reds if I allow this darned white Injun to get away out o' this without a carcase full o' lead. So we'd better go up and finish the job to-night." "Can't be done, I reckon. What about his pard--eh? To say nothin' about Nat Hardroper, who seems to have kinder taken him up!" "Darn his pard, and darn Nat Hardroper!" replied the other, furiously. "Only a set of doggoned skunks 'ud have elected Nat Hardroper sheriff, and only a set of white-livered coons 'ud have kep' him in the berth. I guess I don't fear him." "See here, Rube," suggested the other, "why not tumble to my plan? He'll be going to Red Cloud's village in a day or two--see if he don't. Then we can ambush him at Bald Eagle Forks and plant him full of lead." "Don't want that. Want to string him up. Shooting's too good. Didn't he set the red devils on to sculp my pardners? Didn't he wipe out my brother? leastways, he must have, for I reckon Chinee-Knifer Abe ain't the boy to be taken playin' possum. Ef it hadn't bin for a squad of his reds, we'd have strung him up down in Burntwood Creek the day before the snow." "Guess our scalps sat loose that day. Snakes! but they ran us hard," answered the fellow addressed as Dan. "This Vipan 'd have been buzzard-meat then but for that."