“I ain’t a-sayin’ but what Ike’s natural talent fer bein’ somewheres else was a benefit to him on one occasion. That was when Bill Briscom was found in the road with the top of his head blowed off. We all knowed that him an’ Ike had had a serious difficulty the day before, an’ there was some talk o’ holdin’ Ike fer trial on suspicion, but Ike he heard about it, just naturally, an’ he spoke up like a man: ‘I ain’t a-sayin’ but that I’d oughter ha’ killed the feller,’ he says, ’fer I caught him cheatin’ at cards, an’ I licked him good an’ proper, an’ the galoot swore he’d shoot me on sight, but it stands to reason,’ he says, ‘that in order to ha’ killed him, I’d ’a’ had to be there at the time. Now I leave it to all of you to say whether I was ever whar I’d oughter be at the time when I was needed. You all know my weakness, gentlemen,’ he says, ’an’ I ask you to join me in drinkin’ to the memory o’ the late departed. He warn’t no good, but as long as he’s gone we can afford to forgive him fer all he done.’ “Well, that settled that matter, though some o’ Briscom’s friends, for he had some friends who said he wasn’t half-bad, an’ who kind o’ thought Ike had ought for to own up that he shot him in a fair fight--them friends was disposed to push the matter to a trial. But I says to ’em, ‘You can’t never convict him,’ I says. ‘Ike’s constitutional infirmity,’ I says, ‘is too well known to the community. There ain’t no jury in this country,’ I says, ‘that’d find him guilty.’ “But that ain’t tellin’ you how he come to be called Tenspot Ike,” said the old man, suddenly remembering what he had started to say. “That were a most remarkable story, an’ p’ints several morals. In the first place, it were the on’y time in his life that Ike was ever knowed to be on hand when he was wanted, and there’s no manner o’ doubt it were the last. Then it were the occasion of a most miraculous delivery of the credit an’ cash capital of Arkansas City from eternal smash by means of a casual ten-spot of clubs that Ike, by some utterly unaccountable dispensation of Providence, happened to have in his pocket.