Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-02-16
CASTING IN OF BILLY BRITT
Continued from page 4

Continued
It to his person when Doles sat in. But that
wasn't the worst of it.
Doles with a sweeping movement of his lett
hand spread his cards face up on the table
and with the right produced his own frearm,
which he showed in Britts face while Britt
was stammering That's good" And Doles
further and with malice aforethought created
the impression that it was he who had caught
Britt in a piece of crookedness, by Kissing at
him across the table:
Don't you never try that there on me
again."
For all of which in Jury to his pocket and to
his feelings and to his reputation, Britt then
and there silently had registered vow to get
even with Doles and to do that person similar
damage, even if he had to wait until his
dying day for the opportunity. Doles had
b1ackened his career in his home town, where
his folks had lived and died and been known
always the whitest of the white, and he was
going to get even with him in way that would
hurt:
And when l cash in, said Britt in ending
his story, just you listen good and hard and
you'll hear old Doles holler."
RRITT knew, even before DR.. Cummings
pronounced sentence on him, that his case
was hopeless. He had known 1t for sometime,
in fact, and his return to Devalu was due to
not unnatural desire to die at home,-to that
and to morbid anxiety. amounting almost to
Purely by accident he had discovered in Eagle
Pass a means to the latter end. Displayed in
the show window of store there was rack
of poker chips the design of which "a black star
set within a black circle) had startled him
with its latent possibilities. Those chips, now
carefully slowed in the red leather case under
the covering at the foot of his bed, constituted
the means to the much desired end; but how
to apply them in his present condition was
a problem for which he lacked satisfactory
solution.
Until he learned of Hapsworth's efforts to
interest the townsfolk in a proposition to
been occupied almost wholly by study of this
problem. In Britt's books Hapsworth had
been writ large as friend; consequently the
new minister's desire for a church grew in
time to occupy large share OF his thoughts,
where finally it bumped against that other
problem with so much force as to illumine
the darkest recesses of his mind and disclose
to him the great idea lurking there The
shock of this illumination almost finished Britt.
He sat up in bed, trying to laugh and to cough
at one and the same time.
1.-TWO birds with the same stonel" he gasped
when he could get his breath.
You amt seeing things are you, Billy"
Shadrach asked with much solicitude.
seeing how we're going to build that church
you and me and old Boke." And then the
coughing fit seized him again.
paroxysm had exhausted itself and Britt
"Uh-huh." said Britt weakly. But he
won't know it-not just yet he won't. You
and me and the parson will tend to the build
ing"
When Shadrach left the sick man he had
three commissions to execute. He was to
request the Rev. Mr.. Hapsworth to make an
nouncement of the fact that Billy Britt had
constituted himself committee of one to see
that the church was built. He was to see the
sheriff, and to arrange with that man to pro-
pose to the poker players of the town that a
Take-off from the game be established for the
benefit of the new church. End he was to
undertake to collect that rake-of at stated
intervals and deliver the chips in person to
Britt, who would contrive to make their cash
value available for the purpose without &C
quainting the new minister with the source
from which that part of the funds was derived
The sheriff, who secretly had formed high
opinion of the new minister, entered heartily
into the plan and proposed it without loss of
time, with the gratuitous information that
This here Billy Britt's jeenus, and we're
only just finding it out" Boke Doles objected
ION principal" If there was to be any rake
off. according to his notion it should be for
the benefit of the house. But George Cranston,
the back room of whose saloon was then being
used for the card parties, secuted this PROPOSE
ton. declaring that the house was doing
pretty well, and that he believed in encourag
ing home industry, even in Methodizing So