was equally positive that moral suasion is
the only means by which a cow can be brought to a show down.
In the meantime I was dying every half hour.
Finally the day preceding the long-talked of country excursion
arrived and I began to figure on the safest and least inexpensive
methods of suicide.
I went to the track in the afternoon and threw out enough gold dust
to paint our country home from cellar to attic--but never a sardine
showed.
Frostbitten and suffocated by the odor of burning money I crept
into a seat in the car and began to plan my finale.
Presently an elbow poked me in the ribs and I looked into the
smiling face of Bunch Jefferson.
"Still piking, eh?" he chuckled; "you wouldn't trail along after
Your Uncle Bunch and get next to the candy man, would you? Only
$400 to the good to-day. Am I the picker from Picklesburg, son of
the old man Pickwick?--well, I guess yes!"
Then in that desperate moment I broke down and confessed all to
Bunch. I told him how my haughty spirit disdained a tip and how in
the pride of my heart I doped the cards myself and fell in the
well. I told him of my feverish desire to beat the Bookmakers down
through the earth till they yelled for mercy, and I told him of my
pitiful dilemma and how I had to build a home in the country before
noon to-morrow or do a dog trot to the Bad lands.
Then Bunch began to laugh--a long, loud, discordant laugh which
ended in, "John, I'll help you make good!" and then I began to sit
up and notice things.
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