“The youngster himself was vehement and vociferous, but the Captain only smiled at him still more pleasantly, and said again that the game must be closed for the night. It was easy enough to manage such a case as his, but after the young fellow had pleaded and sputtered and even tried feebly to bluster without any success, another man, much older, of dark visage and thin, sharp features, spoke up in ugly fashion: “‘I call it a piece of impertinence and a gross assumption of authority for the Captain of a steamboat or anybody else to undertake to stop a party of gentlemen playing a friendly game.’ “A quick change came over the Captain’s face. The smile was gone, and the eyes contracted a little as they seemed to shoot fire, so keen and brilliant was the look in them: “‘It is not necessary, Major, to consider what I might or might not do in case a party of gentlemen were playing a friendly game of poker here. The point is that this game is going to stop now. Gentlemen don’t ply boys with liquor and then win money from them, and, by the Almighty, nobody else is going to do it on my boat.’ “The Major was as angry now as the Captain. He glanced at the other players, but they all had sufficient grace to be ashamed, or, at least, to appear so, and with a contemptuous smile, he said: ‘I understand you perfectly, Captain, and I suppose you will give me satisfaction. Nobody else seems inclined to demand it, but I am not in the habit of allowing anybody to lie about me without calling him to account.’ “No law on earth could have prevented those two men from fighting after that, and there was nobody present to put the machinery of the law in operation, even if it had been of any avail. The Captain bowed. ‘I will make a landing on the Arkansas side in twenty minutes,’ he said, ‘and we can step ashore alone, unless you prefer to take a friend with you.’ “‘No,’ said the Major, ‘I would rather prefer going alone.’ “The two saluted and the Captain strode out of the cabin. The Major, without deigning a look or a word to any of us, walked over to his stateroom, entered it, and closed the door. “There was a good deal of quiet conversation going on for a little while, but nobody seemed to feel called on--I know I did not--to interfere, and there was considerable speculation as to which would kill the other. That one of them would be killed seemed certain, and, it was my own notion that the Major would be the one. It was true that I did not know him, but I did know Captain Foss.