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Neither the promised Noah's ark to present to tiny Skeezucks nor the Christmas-tree on which the men had planned to hang their gifts was one whit nearer to realization than as if they had never been suggested. Meantime, once again the food-supply was nearly gone. Keno kept the pile of fuel reasonably high, but cheer was not so prevalent in the cabin as to ask for further room.

"And the rabbit fer a turkey," added a friend. "Well, by jinks! you'll git the lemon-pie all right, if you don't git nuthin' else," declared little Keno. "If only I can plan it out I'll fetch the tree," said Jim. "I'd like to do that for the little boy." "Jim's an awful clever ole cuss," said Field, trusting to work some benefit by a judicious application of flattery.

To Flandrau the news seemed too good for the truth. Less than twenty-four hours ago he had been waiting for the end of the road with a rope around his neck. Now he was free to slip a saddle on his pony Keno and gallop off as soon as he pleased. How such a change had been brought about he did not yet understand.

One of the unmounted searchers carried a lantern. They were Tom Walsh, -on Keno, -Jack Durham, and Tom Sherwood. "What in 'tarnation's the trouble, lad?" demanded Tom, as soon as the searching party had exchanged greetings with Ralph, fervently overjoyed to see them. "We've been looking for you ever since three o'clock this afternoon." Ralph explained the object of his quest.

He laughed indulgently and poured Charley out a drink which made his eyes blink and snap and then he waved him graciously away. "Take your burros up the canyon," he suggested briefly, and when Charley was gone he smiled. "Now," he said, as Virginia sat down beside him, "what's all this about the Paymaster and Keno?"

"'Our Father which art in heaven . . . Our Father which art in heaven "Now, hold on, just a minute," and he paused to think before resuming and wiped his suddenly sweating brow. "'Our Father which art in heaven If I should die before I wake . . . Give us our daily bread. Amen." The men all sat in silence. Then Keno whispered, so loudly that every one could hear; "By jinks!

They were drawing a quilt, and as the numbers were drawn all were anxious to know who drew it. Finally, after several numbers were drawn it was announced by the deacon that number fifteen drew the quilt, and the little sister turned to the traveling man and said, "My! that is my number. I have drawn it. What shall I do?" "Hold up your ticket and shout keno," said he.

Him that was once satisfied only when he was pegging six boards at keno or giving the faro dealers nervous prostration to see him pushing them checkers about like Sally Louisa at a school-children's party why, I was all smothered up with mortification. "And I sits there playing the black men, all sweating for fear somebody I knew would find it out.

My conductors appeared to have the passion, for our course led from one method of hazard to another roulette, chuck-a-luck where the patrons cast dice for prizes of money and valuables arrayed upon numbered squares of an oilcloth covered board, keno where numbered balls were decanted one at a time from a bottle-shaped leather receptacle called, I learned, the "goose," and the players kept tab by filling in little cards as in domestic lotto; and finally we stopped at the simplest apparatus of all.

Well, Keno did sink his head and pitch around camp a little, but not to amount to anything. He just stuck his nose into old Hagar's wikiup and one sniff seemed to be about all he wanted. He didn't hurt anything." He took a meditative bite of cake, finished the buttermilk in three rapturous swallows, and bethought him of the feminine mystery.