An' this is how Jim Elkins got his ante in this New York game he's a-buckin' so successful. An' so it was that my little meet-up with a Sioux City shell-man, which I'm lookin' fer yit, results in a reg'lar Pullman sleeper trip to Chicago, where I'm the guest of honor at a feedin' contest instituted by Mr. James R. Elkins, whereat Mr. Jackleg--Witherspoon, I mean, and dead game after all, if any one should inquire--makes a talk about the pleasure it affords all of us to see our old friend Elkins restored to those financial circulars where he was so well known, an' so much at home; an' alludin' to me as restorer-in-chief by virtoo of my great feet, an' losin' ten thousand dogies so that Pinkerton himself couldn't find 'em ontil the wilderness saw fit to disgorge 'em in its own wild an' woolly way. An' fin'ly I'm called on an' made to git up, locoed at the strange grazin' ground, but game to do my best, an' after millin' awhile, "I'm here," says I, "owin' to my eckstrordinary talent f'r obeyin' orders. I'm told to come hither, an' I at once set out to prove my effectiveness as a come-hitherer. As f'r losin' ten thousand dogies, I cain't see what that has to do with my great feet. An' right here," I says, "I wish to state that I onst lost something else, to wit, my val'able temper at something done 'r said by a gentleman now present, for all of which I begs pardon of Mr. Jackleg--Mr. Witherspoon, I means," says I, an' everybody hollers an' pounds, him most of all, but redder'n a turkey, "an' I wish to state that it does me good to feel that harmony and peace between him an' me is restored. Here in Chicago," says I, "him an' me can git together on the platform of feedin' in bunches, without dehornin'; with the paramount issue to go before the people on, however, that old plank o' his'n declarin' f'r frekent drinks!" After that, I don't remember what eventuated--not quite so clear. * * * * * "I told you," said the Bride, as the party broke up for the night, "that we'd get some local color." "Alas!" replied the Artist. "This is like the local color of Babylon and the Shepherd Kings--a tradition and a whisper borne on the night breeze, of things that were. O, Remington! Remington!" CHAPTER VI