put up a very stiff case, because I was hot at the row. I would n't have cared if the howlers had been better men than I was, but I knew they were all just the same kind of cattle—unbranded, straggling steers, gathered up from anywhere but a good place. As for being shady, there was n't a man between the Gila and the Pecos white enough to pass an Eastern grand jury, and as for being a gambler, there was n't a mother's son of the batch that would n't have coppered his soul on a black jack if the bank would have cashed it for a dollar.”
Hergan paused for a moment and looked at the Auditor. Then he added, “Exceptin' of course, you and Al.”
“Then,” the gambler went on: “I guess Al got mad. He made a little speech; we was all there, and it was mighty good talk to hear. He said there had n't been no 'invidious distinctions'—them were his words,—during all the years when nothing had come our way but just one dose of bad luck after another until we reckoned there was n't no God at all,—least ways, if there was any, that He did n't operate
