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?"

The American Claimant