Studpoker Bob, true to his bent in life, was rapidly appropriating Hank's payday by aid of a very dirty pack of cards and a game known as "Casino." Close by sat Jack Derringer, patching a pair of oilskin pants, with the cowboy prone beside him, a paint-covered, disreputable slouch hat which had once been a "shore-enough Stetsin" hiding his face from the glare of the sun. Leaning against the port lighthouse, old Ben Sluice, with the aid of a gigantic pair of spectacles perched on the tip of his nose, laboriously spelt out a yellow-backed English society novel. The cockney, with his head buried in his arms, lay face down on the deck in the attitude beloved by the British Tommy Atkins, snoring like a tired cross-cut saw; whilst Paddy at his side bent a wrinkled brow upon a gigantic volume entitled, _The Drainage of Europe_. Below on the maindeck Curly and the boy worked steadily upon a mass of singlets and shirts, with the aid of the wash-deck tub. Suddenly old Ben Sluice dropped his book, gave a slow look round, and, catching Jack's eye, spoke: "Jack, you've been learnt--eddicated as they say. What breed o' coyote air these here book-sharps? What does they allow is their long suit? Does this here benighted burro reckon he knows 'hoss'? He don't know 'hoss' from 'jackass,' nor 'mewel' from 'dogy'; he's green an' juicy a whole passel, like a fool-kid suckin' eggs an' actin' smart." "What's the trouble, Ben?" "Why, look-a-here; this buckaroo clean gets me, fur a fact. I cain't throw a squaw-hitch over his idees worth a cent. He has me driftin' like lost sheep----" "What cuts you, old son?" broke in Broncho, from behind his sombrero. "Wall, it's this way. Thar's a long-nose coon the book-sharp calls Lord Edward, who didn't oughter be allowed round. He's a big auger, too, way up on the trail. "He goes buttin' round the landscape, a-hittin' it up high, a-discardin' his dinero like as if he's a mine-boss an' a-soakin' up tanglefoot to beat a sheepman; an' he's roped up a wife as pretty as a peach, whom he don' pay no more attention to than if she's an empty bottle. "He jest neglec's her complete 'cept with his tongue, which is that mean an' ugly it gets her hot in the collar every time. Wall, she jest sets thar an' wilts, an' don' pay no heed to nothin', though thar's a whole mob o' softies floppin' round her like gapin' trout-fish, sayin' as how hers weren't no dago dream o' paradise, till they gets mushy an' maudlin' over her white face an' big eyes; an' thar ain't one of 'em, with their soft talk, who's got the sand to up an' shoot the white outer the high-falootin' eye of Lord Edward.