The three hundred numbered tickets were then produced by Sophy. She handed them to Varney to deposit in the ancient plug hat that Pop Wilkins had obligingly loaned for the occasion, in accordance with time honored custom. Pop, with the sun reflecting from his bald head, stood on the platform, adjusted his brass rimmed spectacles, and made ready to call off the cancellations. Varney ran through the tickets several times and counted them to see if they were all there. His numbers were from 281 to 290. He mixed the tickets over thoroughly inside the hat with his hand, and the blindfolded Sophy began drawing. She had carefully bent all of her own tickets in such a way as to enable her to identify them by touch, and had no doubt that she would own Hyder Ali within the next twenty minutes. There was excited buying and selling, at big premiums, of numbers remaining in the hat as the contest narrowed down, and there were frequent delays in the drawing to accommodate the speculators. Six of Sophy’s tickets had come out. None of them were bent and cold chills raced up and down her spine. Her agile and nervous fingers had carefully avoided a well bent ticket near one side of the grimy interior of the hat. When she drew out a flat ticket next to it, she learned to her horror that it was her last number. With a faint heart she reached for the other, hoping that there had been some error in her count, but the last ticket was number 294, and it belonged to Mr. Flaherty. It was evident to her that the wily Josh had discovered the bent tickets, and while he was handling them over inside the hat he had managed to straighten them all and bend Flaherty’s. Whatever other artifice Josh might have had in reserve had he not discovered the bunch of bent tickets will always be a mystery, but he certainly had no intention of leaving Hyder Ali in the river country. Sophy removed the handkerchief, under which she had found no difficulty in peeking during the drawing, and looked upon Josh. Human eyes have seldom glittered with the venomous and deadly glow that he now saw in Sophy’s orbs. Such eyes might have blazed through a labyrinth in a jungle upon one who had seized a tiger cub. Backed by courage the look would have portended murder. Sophy at once realized the hopelessness of her position, for no specious protest was possible. She had encountered an adept in an art in which she was but a tyro. It was all over and she was compelled to smother her impotent wrath. To the crowd, ignorant of the little drama on the platform, everything had seemed entirely regular. None of them had ever had a ghost of a chance of getting the turkey, but they were good natured losers. Pop Wilkins carefully restored the old stovepipe hat to his shining dome. While regretting that he had not won Hyder Ali and that that remarkable bird from foreign lands was not to remain in the community, he declared that there was now nothing to do but congratulate the winner.