in half a jiffy."

"Who's that playing cards?" Curtis asked.

"How do you know any one is playing cards?" the girl queried with an
incredulous stare. "You can't see through walls, can you?"

"No! and I'm hanged if I can explain," Curtis said, "I seem to hear
them. There are two--one is called Arnold, and the other Lemon, or
some such name, and they are rehearsing certain card tricks they mean
to play to-night."

"That's right," the girl said, "two men named Arnold and Lemon are
here. They were playing all last night with two of the clerks in
Willows Bank, in Sacramento Street, and they cleared them out of every
cent. You knew it!"

"No! I didn't," Curtis growled, "I don't lie for fun, and I'm just as
much in a fog, as to how I know, as you are. Let's have breakfast now,
and we'll look up these two gents afterwards, if they haven't gone."

"Your friend's a brute, I don't like him," the girl whispered to
Kelson. "Let him lose all he's got--you stay out here."

"Nothing I should like better," Kelson said, "it's a bargain!"

The breakfast was so good that they lingered long over it, and the
bar-room had a fair sprinkling of people when they re-entered it.
Leaving Kelson to chat with the girl, Hamar and Curtis, obeying her
directions, found their way to a small parlour in the rear of the