“After he was plumb certain that there wasn’t no old stock left over in town, he drifted in one day, an’ his pal followed next day. They was too slick to come together, or to let on that they knowed each other. Well, just naturally, when every pack o’ cards in town was marked, an’ only two men knowed it, and both o’ them had been practisin’ on readin’ them marks till they knowed the backs as well as they did the fronts, them two men took away all the available cash capital there was in Arkansas City. It was a rich haul, an’ everybody ’lowed that Pete was entitled to great credit for the way he worked it, though just naturally we was all pretty sore when we found it out, which we didn’t till Pete an’ the other feller had got away to Mexico. “Well, as I was sayin’, the boys was a-gettin’ on the best way they could after that cyclone, an’ playin’ mumbletypeg amongst themselves with their odd change till some more strangers would come along an’ give ’em a chance to git their money back. An’ it had been goin’ on that way for some weeks when it come that night I was tellin’ of, that Park Halloway made his big play. “It was a dispensation o’ Providence, sure enough, that sent three cotton factors up f’m New Orleans just at that time. They was comin’ up to dicker with some o’ the planters for the next crop, there havin’ been some difficulty in the market that had got a lot o’ planters dissatisfied, and these new factors had all sorts o’ money with ’em. They was stoppin’ over in Arkansas City to make some inquiries, an’ just naturally they set into a little game while they was a-waitin’ for the next boat. “Jim Farley an’ Dick Hackett had been playin’ with ’em for about a hour when Halloway come in, an’ naturally they had accumulated some wealth, so that the game was pretty healthy. It was table stakes, but there wasn’t one o’ the five that didn’t have over a hundred in front of him, so when Halloway come in an’ ast if he c’d have a hand we was some surprised. He’d been as near broke as anybody in town since Pete’s raid, an’ it didn’t seem likely that he had money enough to set in with. “So when he ast to set in, Hackett looked up a little doubtful an’ says, ‘Why, cert’nly, Park, but we’re playin’ table stakes,’ an’ he looked around at the money then in sight as much as to say, ‘That sort o’ lets you out, don’t it?’ “But Halloway, he grinned an’ says, ‘That’s the on’y game where I could get a show for my money, I reckon,’ an’ he sets down an’ flashes a five-dollar bill as sassy as you please. ‘I’ll make it as quick play as I can,’ he says, still grinnin’, an’ they all laughed an’ pushed him over five white chips.