"Wall, it's 'bout sundown, one day in the early fall, when a stranger comes lopin' into camp on a played-out pinto pony, which he halts up before the 'Gold Nugget,' old Konkey Bell's saloon, an' proceeds to dismount tharfrom like as if he's some wearied an' bone-tired. I notes this through the door, from where I'm buckin' a faro game, an' likewise takes in a pair o' big black eyes an' a smooth face. 'It's a boy,' I remyarks casual to myself as I coppers my bet, an' the next minit I sees this here black-eyed foreigner up agen the bar, a-swallowin' a drink 'longside o' P'ison Dick. It ain't manners none to take a drink alone that-away, an' is liable to make a gent too conspicuous to be healthy; but seein' he's a stranger and without many rings on his horns, it passes. P'ison Dick scowls, but says nothin'; then _poco tiempo_ tells the bar-keep to set 'em up again. "The bar-keep slams down a glass before the stranger, who pushes it away some careless, an' allows he's done finished lubricatin'. "P'ison Dick's eyes kinder narrowed like a snake's. "'I'm askin' you to hev' a drink, stranger,' he says, colder'n ice in hell. "You-alls may surmise the rest of us is some taciturn, not to say mute a whole lot, an' some foxy longhorns is already takin' cover. "The stranger smiles kinder queer at Dick--jest a mouth twist, his eyes lookin' a heap grim; an' he stands thar for mebbe the length of a drink o' whisky, then snaps out in a sorter shaky screech, 'To hell with yer drink!' an' before you can turn a kyard over, he ups an' has the glass bruck on P'ison Dick's crimson beak. "By this move he has Dick some disgruntled an' gains more time to draw; then, bang! go the gatlin's a'most together, an' Dick's theery cuts adrift from him without strainin' itself none. He's dead meat that sudden, he don't even have time to emit a groan. "The stranger's hit too, plumb through the lung, an' pretty soon cashes in likewise; but, where the game comes queer is this way. That 'ere black-eyed party whom I allowed was a boy is a woman, an' a mighty pretty one at that, though her sperit peters out 'fore we is able to corral any reasons for the game she plays; an' as I pulls my freight next sun-up I never does accoomilate no knowledge tharof. Anyway, P'ison Dick gets his medicine an' lights out that sudden for the heavenly pastures I reckons the angels, or more likely it's them fork-tailed miscreant collectors, is some surprised to see him bulgin' in an' defilin' the scenery o' their sperit-ranche." "Well," observed Jack slowly, "astronomy's a science which gives a wide fling to the imagination, and without those theories you despise is liable to lose a great deal of interest. But let's look at Orion, the finest constellation in the heavens. He's the greatest hunter the world has ever known--Nimrod, who, with his dogs, has been placed up in the heavens to hunt the Bull.