"So here you are!" he said to Jim. "I'm supposed to be half-way to Bird's Corner this very minute on business. But as I ain't due back to Millbrook till to-morrow night or nex' day everything'll be hunkydory. Keep that in yer mind will ye, Jim, Bird's Corner. If the old man knew I ever come here he'd sure think I played cards, an' then little Mel would be cast out." "I'll remember," said Jim. "I'm not telling on you." "But ain't ye both on the same log, far's that goes?" queried Uncle Sam Ducat. "Who, Jim here?" returned Melchior. "Not on yer sweet life! Jim don't give a hooray what the old man thinks of him or says to him--nor what any one else says or thinks, I guess. Why, he told pa where he got off at the first minute they met an' has been doin' it ever since. But what's wrong with yer lip, Mark? An' yer nose? They're all puffed up." "Zat so, Mel?" returned Mark. "Puffed up, hey? Somethin' wrong with them, hey? They suit me all right. I wouldn't swap 'em for no other lip nor nose on this river. Take another look, Mel, an' then if ye're still in the same mind about 'em--if ye don't like their looks--tell me about it an' step outside an' see if ye kin fix 'em for me." "Oh, if that's how ye're feelin', they look fine," answered Mel. "If they suit you, they suit me. I got one hour an' then I'll have to move along, for I left the mare down at the Fork. What about a little game?" "I'm agreeable," said Sam. "Five cent ante, as usual, hey?" "When I was a young man a-sparkin' round an' a-courtin' the girls, I didn't uster waste my time with the men an' the cards," said old Archie McKim. "Yer dead right, Archie," retorted old Hercules Ducat. "Ye was too danged scart o' losin' a dollar! Courtin' was cheaper!" "Maybe it was in them days," laughed Melchior, pulling a chair up to the table and seating himself as if he intended business. "What about you, Jim?" asked Mark. "Delighted," said Jim. "D'ye know poker?" "It's my middle name." The grandfathers, Mrs. Ducat, and the girl did not join in the game. Jim played with discretion and luck. Mel lost for an hour and a quarter, then remembered his mare hitched in the woods at the fork of the roads four miles away, wished everyone good night and departed. Flora saw him to the door and stood in whispered conversation on the threshold for half a minute. "Does he come here often?" asked Jim of Mark, in a low aside, as Uncle Sam dealt the cards with mighty heaves of the shoulders as if each bit of pasteboard weighed fifty pounds. "Every chance he gets," replied Mark. "Whenever he kin give Amos the slip. Dang if I know if it's Flora or the cards fetches 'im! Reckon it's Flora. But she don't worry. They all look the same to her, I guess."