Cherry waited till the deal was over, when he got to the Forest Queen; and then he asked Santa Fé Charley if he'd let him speak to the boys for a minute before the game went on. He was always polite and obliging, Santa Fé was, and he said of course he might; and he rapped on the table with his derringer for order, and said Mr. Cherry had the floor. Charley was old-fashioned in his ways of fighting. He always had a six-shooter in his belt, same as other folks; but he said he kept it mainly for show. Derringers, he said, was better and surer--because you could work 'em around in your pocket while the other fellow was getting his gun out, and before he was ready for business you could shoot him right through your pants. Later on, it was that very way Santa Fé shot Hart. But he always was friendly with Hart till he did shoot him; and it was more his backing than anything else--'specially when it come to the kindergarten--that made Cherry's plan for helping Hart out go through. When the game was stopped, and the boys was all listening, Cherry told about the hole Hart was in and allowed it was a deep one; and he said it was only fair--Hart having done good turns for most everybody, one time and another--his friends should be willing to take some trouble to get him out of it. Hart's aunt, he said, come from a quiet part of Vermont, and likely would be jolted bad when she struck Palomitas if things was going the ordinary way--she being elderly, and like enough a little set in her ways, and not used much to crazy drunks, and shooting-matches, and such kinds of lively carryings-on. But she'd only stay one day, or at most a day and a half--Hart having agreed to take her right back East himself, if she couldn't be got rid of no other way--and that gave 'em a chance to fix things so her feelings wouldn't be hurt, though doing it was going to be hard on all hands. And then, having got the boys worked up wondering what he was driving at, Cherry went ahead and said he wanted 'em to agree--just for the little while Hart's aunt was going to stay there--to run Palomitas like it was a regular back-East Sunday-school town. He knew he was asking a good deal, he said, but he did ask it--and he appealed to the better feelings of the gentlemen assembled around that faro-table to do that much to get Bill Hart out of his hole. Then Cherry said he wasn't nobody's orator, but he guessed he'd made clear what he wanted to lay before the meeting; and he said he was much obliged, and had pleasure in setting up drinks for the crowd.