CHAPTER IV.

The day wore itself out. After dinner the two friends put in a long and
harassing evening trying to decide what to do with the five thousand
dollars reward which they were going to get when they should find One-
Armed Pete, and catch him, and prove him to be the right person, and
extradite him, and ship him to Tahlequah in the Indian Territory. But
there were so many dazzling openings for ready cash that they found it
impossible to make up their minds and keep them made up. Finally, Mrs.
Sellers grew very weary of it all, and said:

"What is the sense in cooking a rabbit before it's caught?"

Then the matter was dropped, for the time being, and all went to bed.
Next morning, being persuaded by Hawkins, the colonel made drawings and
specifications and went down and applied for a patent for his toy puzzle,
and Hawkins took the toy itself and started out to see what chance there
might be to do something with it commercially. He did not have to go
far. In a small old wooden shanty which had once been occupied as a
dwelling by some humble negro family he found a keen-eyed Yankee engaged
in repairing cheap chairs and other second-hand furniture. This man
examined the toy indifferently; attempted to do the puzzle; found it not
so easy as he had expected; grew more interested, and finally
emphatically so; achieved a success at last, and asked:

"Is it patented?"