"Hello, Injianny; what are you doin' here?" inquired a man in civilian clothes, but unmistakably a gambler. Shorty remembered him at once as the man with whom he had had the adventure with the loaded dice at Murfreesboro. With the fraternity of the class, neither remembered that little misadventure against the other. They had matched their wits for a wrestle, and when the grapple was over it was over. Shorty therefore replied pleasantly: "O, jest loafin' back here, gittin' well o' a crack on the head and the camp fever." "Into anything to put in the time?" "Naah," said Shorty weariedly. "Nearly dead for something. Awful stoopid layin' around up there among them hayseeds, doin' nothin'. Jest run down to Jeffersonville to see if I couldn't strike something that'd some life in it." "Well, I kin let you into a good thing. I've bin runnin' that shebang over there, with another man, and doin' well, but he let his temper git away with him, and shpped a knife into a sucker, and they've got him in jail, where he'll stay awhile. I must have another partner. Got any money?" "A hundred or so," answered Shorty. "Well, that's enough. I don't want money so much as the right kind of a man. Put up your stuff, and I'll let you in cahoots with me, and we'll make a bar'l o' money out o' these new troops that'll begin coming down this week." "I like the idee. But how do you know you kin run your game. This Provost-Marshall--" "O, the Provost's all right. He's an old friend o' mine. I have him dead to rights. Only whack up fair with him, and you're all right. Only pinches them that want to hog on him and won't share. I've bin runnin' right along here for weeks, and 've had no trouble. I give up my little divvy whenever he asks for it." "If I was only certain o' that," said Shorty meditatively, "I'd--" "Certain? Come right over here to that ranch, and have a drink, and I'll show you, so's you can't be mistaken. I tell you, I'm solid as a rock with him." When seated at a quiet table, with their glasses in front of them, the gambler pulled some papers from his breast pocket, and selecting one shoved it at Shorty with the inquiry: "There, what do you think o' that?" Shorty read over laboriously: "Deer Bat: Send me 50 please. I set behind two small pair last night, while the other feller had a full, & Ime strapt this morning. Yores, "Billings." "That seems convincing," said Shorty. "Then look at this," said the gambler, producing another paper. It read: "Deer Bat: Got yore $100 all right, but doant send by that man again. He's shaky, and talks too much. Bring it yourself, or put it in an envelope directed to me, & drop it in my box. Yores, "Billings." "That's enough," said Shorty, with his mind in a tumult, as to how he was to get these papers into his possession. "I'll go in with you, if you'll take me. Here's my fist."