SUDDEN DEPARTURE. 87 



barrel unerringly dealt destruction. Our common 

 love of field-sports drew us much together, and 

 friendship was the natural result. 



' I discovered by chance he was stranded for 

 means, and consequently invited him to pay me a 

 visit ; which he did, passing the entire time, five 

 weeks, in shooting or fishing, in both of which sports 

 he was wondrously successful. At night he would 

 amuse me and my visitors with his skill in per- 

 forming sleight-of-hand tricks at cards, or by ex- 

 plaining and exposing the means that professional 

 gamblers employ to swindle their victims. 



' One day, breakfast had just been removed, 

 my horse was at the door, and I only lingered to 

 give some final orders about dinner, when Boyle 

 joined me, giving the information that it was 

 necessary for him to go to the next State. His 

 business, he said, was important, and he could not 

 perform it without the loan of a hundred dollars. 

 Although I knew him to be a gambler, and one 

 not very particular in the artifices he employed to 

 obtain success at the gaming-table, I lent him the 

 money, and we parted, for when I returned at sun- 

 set he was gone. 



' It might have been eight o'clock, possibly later, 

 while some farmers who had been disposing of stock 

 were with me, when the third or fourth deal at 

 poker having taken place, the house-dogs raised a 

 disturbance more than usually loud and vindictive. 

 The cause of their excitement was the appearance of 



