Charley set down to deal, same as usual, and asked the little man to set down aside of him--telling him he'd likely be interested in knowing that what come to the bank that night would go to getting the melodeon the Sunday-school needed bad. And then he shoved the cards round the table, and things begun. The little man took it all dreamy--saying kind of to himself he'd never in all his born days expected to see a minister making money for Sunday-school melodeons by running a faro-bank. But he wasn't so dreamy but he had sense enough to keep out of the game. Santa Fé kept a-asking him polite to come in; but he kept answering back polite he wouldn't--saying he was no sort of a hand at cards. About the size of it was, in all the matters he could see his way to that little man had as good a load of sand as anybody--and more'n most. Like enough at home he'd read a lot of them fool Wild West stories--the kind young fellers from the East, who swallow all that's told 'em, write up in books with scare pictures--and that was why in some ways he was so easy fooled. But I guess it would a-been a mistake to pick him up for a fool all round. Anyhow, Santa Fé got a set-back from him on his melodeon-faro racket--and set-backs didn't often come Santa Fé's way. It wasn't a real game the little man was up against, and like enough he had the savey to ketch on to what was being give him. For the look of the thing they'd fixed to start with a baby limit, and not raise it till he got warmed up and asked to; and it was fixed only what he dropped--the rest going back to the boys--should stay with the bank. But as he didn't warm up any worth speaking of, and wasn't giving himself no chances at all to do any dropping, Santa Fé pretty soon found out they might as well hang up the melodeon fund and go on to the next turn. * * * * * The Sage-Brush Hen managed most of what come next, and she done it well. She'd dressed herself up in them white clothes of hers with a little blue bow tied on at the neck--looking that quiet and tidy and real lady-like you'd never a-notioned what a mixed lot she was truly--and she'd helped the other girls rig out as near the same way as they could come. Some of 'em didn't come far; but they all done as well as they knowed how to, and so they wasn't to be blamed. Old Tenderfoot Sal--she was the limit, Sal was--wasn't to be managed no way; so they just kept her out of the show.