to wait until my affairs will permit me to follow my inclination. You see, I've made two trips to Santa Fe, it has got into my blood, and there are reasons why I must go over that trail again. And then, knowing the trail so well, it is possible that I can make very good arrangements this year. But isn't it a most remarkable coincidence?"

"Very," drily answered the captain. "By the way,[Pg 57] Mr. Boyd: you and Mr. Cooper seem to be quite friendly, and neither of you waste much time in the company of your present roommates. Seeing that you are both bunked with strangers, how would it suit you if I put you together in the same room? Good: then I'll speak to Mr. Cooper, and if it's agreeable to him I'll have the change made. Sorry to tear myself away from you two, but I must be leaving now." He bowed and stepped into the cabin, smiling to himself. He distinctly remembered his conversation with the young man, only the day before, when Tom had assured him with great earnestness that he no longer could resist the call of the emigrant trail and that he was going to follow it with the first outgoing caravan. The captain was well pleased by the change in the young man's plans, for he knew that the niece of his old friend would be safer on her long journey across the plains if Tom Boyd was a member of the caravan. He turned his steps toward the gaming tables to find her uncle, whom he expected would be surrounded by the members of a profession which Joe Cooper had forsaken many years before for a more reputable means of earning a living.

[Pg 57]

The reputation of "St. Louis Joe" was known to almost everyone but his niece; and the ex-gambler was none too sure that she did not know it. While his name was well-known, there were large numbers of gamblers on both rivers, newcomers to the streams, who did not know him by sight; and it was his delight to play the part of an innocent and unsuspecting merchant and watch them try to fleece him. Not one of the professionals on the Missouri Belle knew he was playing against a man who could tutor him in the finer points of his chosen[Pg 58] art; but by this time they had held a conference or two in a vain attempt to figure why their concerted efforts had borne bitter fruit. One of them, smarting over his moderate, but annoyingly persistent losses, was beginning to get ugly. While his pocketbook was lightly touched, his pride was raw and bleeding. Elias Stevens was known as a quick-tempered man whom it were well not to prod; and Joseph Cooper was prodding him again and again, and appearing to take a quiet but deep satisfaction in the operation. At first Stevens had hungered 

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