deliberation the Kid dealt the top card. Beneath it was the trey
of spades. Glenister said no word nor made a move. Some one
coughed, and it sounded like a gunshot. Slowly the dealer's
fingers retraced their way. He hesitated purposely and leered at
the girl, then the three-spot disappeared and beneath it lay the
ace as the king had lain on that other wager. It spelled utter
ruin to Glenister. He raised his eyes blindly, and then the
deathlike silence of the room was shattered by a sudden crash.
Cherry Malotte had closed her check-rack violently, at the same
instant crying shrill and clear: "That bet is off! The cases are
wrong!"

Glenister half rose, overturning his chair; the Kid lunged forward
across the table, and his wonderful hands, tense and talon-like,
thrust themselves forward as though reaching for the riches she
had snatched away. They worked and writhed and trembled as though
in dumb fury, the nails sinking into the oil-cloth table-cover.
His face grew livid and cruel, while his eyes blazed at her till
she shrank from him affrightedly, bracing herself away from the
table with rigid arms.

Reason came slowly back to Glenister, and understanding with it.
He seemed to awake from a nightmare. He could read all too plainly
the gambler's look of baffled hate as the man sprawled on the
table, his arms spread wide, his eyes glaring at the cowering
woman, who shrank before him like a rabbit before a snake. She
tried to speak, but choked. Then the dealer came to himself, and
cried harshly through his teeth one word:

"Christ!"