“It’s all right, judge,” said Mr. Masterson. The magistrate, with his sleeves rolled up from a hard day’s work in his shaft, had been brought from supper to make out the affidavit. When he understood for whom it was designed he hesitated in a mystified way. “It’s all right,” repeated Mr. Masterson. “Let the Off Wheeler swear to the papers; I’ll take the responsibility. And, by the way, you might better authorise me to execute the warrant.” Thus it befell that Mr. Holiday was presently brought in by Mr. Masterson on a charge of robbing, with force and arms, one Charles Stackhouse alias the Off Wheeler. The bail was fixed, and half the men in California Gulch went on the bond. When these technicalities were complied with, Mr. Masterson, glancing at the very watch of which the Off Wheeler had been depleted, said: “Doc, it’s eight o’clock. We’ve got to get back to the Four Flush. You know we’re to have a game there at eight-thirty.” Mr. Holiday, six years before, had left Georgia for the West. He brought with him a six-shooter, a dentist’s diploma, a knowledge of cards, and a hacking cough. When story-tellers mean to kill a character off without giving him a chance, they confer upon him a hacking cough. It was true, however, in the case of Mr. Holiday; a hacking cough he had, and whenever it seized him it was as though one smote against his breastbone with the bit of an axe. In the West Mr. Holiday’s diploma would do him little good. There lives no more of Western call for a dentist than for one who paints flowers upon silks. Wherefore, and because Mr. Holiday must dine and drink until he died of that consumption, he took to cards. Now, cards make up a commerce wherein the West confesses an interest. Mr. Holiday became a busy man, and encountered fortune, black and white; but he never complained until one Dallas evening, when a gentleman said that he held six cards. The game was draw poker, and a hand consisting of six cards would have been an inexcusable vulgarity. There was no long-drawn discussion. The gentleman who had mentioned the six cards cut off debate with a Colt’s pistol. Mr. Holiday met the situation half way, and Dallas buried a foremost citizen. Dallas blamed no one. “They broke even as to guns,” said Dallas, “and Joe lost.” [Illustration: “Let Charlie Swear to the Papers.”]